Sticks and Stones
by WhenEver Possible
Summary: Will break my bones, but words will change the world. A member of Team 7 has had to deal with a voice in their head for their entire life, how much can words change the ninja world? An SI you haven't read before
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the other franchise that I may reference in this story**

AN: My first fic, I look forward to your feedback. This is an SI fic, where instead of replacing Naruto, Sasuke, becoming a sibling to an important ninja, or using a Naruto-in-Name-Only story to pretend it isn't an SI fic, I decided to see how much words could change by replacing Inner Sakura. Explanations of my my opinion of Sakura can be found on my profile. If you notice a reference to another fanfic, have an idea or reccomendation you feel would improve the story, or just think that I should go die in a fire for writing this, please feel free to leave a review.

* * *

**Sticks and Stones: Chapter 1**

" A member of team 7 has always dealt with a voice in the back of their mind, a voice convinced that knowledge is the most dangerous power there is"

_"Have I ever given you reason to doubt me, little scholar?"_

"No, but-

_"Fine, I understand that this request is more nonsensical than my previous recommendations, so I will make you an offer: You have a week before team placements, a week for the administration to incorporate you into the system and the bureaucracy to feel important by signing papers and moveing them from one office to another. A week with no school and no training, nothing to occupy your time. In that week, you'll being with the basics, and in exchange, I will tell you your exactly who will be on your team, to prove my knowledge. If I'm correct, you will trust me to be at least somewhat knowledgeable and continue your studies, and if I'm wrong, I'll drop my requests."_

"Fine, if it'll get you to shut up about it, but how do I know you're not just guessing and hoping you'll be right?"

_"Simple, your teammates will be Uchiha and Uzumaki, little one."_

"Naruto? Now I know you're making it up. That idiot didn't even graduate, there's no way he'll be on my team. I'll take your offer, but when you're wrong, you have to give me some new ideas for chakra experimentation."

_"Terms accepted, little one." _

For as long as she could remember, Sakura had heard the Voice. It was always there, in the back of her mind, serving as a counterpoint to her thoughts, helping her work out her problems, taking amusement in her happiness, empathizing with her pain. It was her secret friend, always there: even when Ino had stopped being friends with her. She knew, intellectually, that it was odd to have a voice in her thoughts, so she kept it a secret, because Ishi was her first and greatest friend, even if they didn't agree on everything.

But she trusted Ishi, even when faced with an odd new idea. Because, while she was talented when it came to absorbing knowledge, memorizing things easily, Ishi was smart when it came to applying knowledge. Ishi's creative, sideways, insane way of looking at something had helped her rise to the position of top kunoichi, despite her weak taijutsu and lack of clan support. Ino could go jump in a lake, because Sakura was going to be the best kunoichi ever.

Everything Sakura wasn't, Ishi was. She was young, but Ishi was like a mentor, or old wise figure. Where Sakura was subdued except when angry, Ishi was enthusiastic unless she (or someone else) did something that really pissed him off. Sakura was focused, and Ishi was flighty. Sakura was cautious, Ishi was confident. Sakura was smart, and Ishi was _wise_. So when she had a problem that she couldn't solve, she tried to be like Ishi.

Most of his insane suggestion had a very good reason behind them, even if he was prone to nonsensical statements and outbursts. She just wished she knew why he wanted her to learn Fuuinjutsu.

* * *

Nevermind, she understood exactly why he wanted her to learn fuuinjutsu.

In short? It was perfect for her, it hinged on mentality and creativity, needing a special blend of the kind of creativity that let you cheat the universe /chakra into doing what you wanted, and the obsessive focus needed to spend hours writing out on paper _exactly_ what you meant, and hours staring at paper to find your mistakes. It was a bizarre blend of math, science, creativity, and insight that most ninja never bothered to look into beyond making the most basic storage scrolls and explosive tags, relying on rote memorization in application.

But for her, it had several great strengths:

With preparation, it was labor intensive rather than chakra intensive. Even seals that used jounin-level chakra reserves could be charged over time before being compressed to accommodate her own limited reserves.

It turned idea's into power. She only needed to design and debug a seal once, and then she could make as many of them as she wanted, given time and supplies, in essence allowing her to premake jutsu or effects for use when she needed them.

Since most ninja never bothered, the information on fuuinjutsu was readily available to anyone who wanted to "waste their time with ink and scrolls, instead of learning real jutsu" as the chuunin who manned the entrance of the public shinobi archives had said when he thought she was out of earshot. She didn't need a clan or a teacher, just imagination and drive, to learn it.

It was primarily mental, actually compressing the seal required chakra and a steady had, but designing a seal required creativity and intelligence. Meaning that Ishi could help her with her sealing, in a way he couldn't with taijutsu or ninjutsu. He could help proofread seals as she drew them, and his "insanity" helped her. He would create off the wall ideas, and the basic structures to make them work, and she would polish them, to make them work _well_.

And, most incredibly, in the right hands, it was incredibly potent. The Second and Fourth Hokage's had become legends through fuuinjutsu, turning the tides of wars and craft legendary weapons. The former had crafted the Blade of the Lightning God and developed the Flying Thunder God technique, which the latter had dissected and mastered in synergy with incredibly potent taijutsu and short range ninjutsu to basically wind the third shinobi war single wasn't sure if it could "Bind demons and shackle kami to her will" like Ishi claimed, but for now, it was almost tailor made to her strengths.

Admittedly, Fuuinjutsu seemed as though it was made to compensate for either lack of chakra or lack of control, and while it represented infinite potential in the long term, in the short term it was inflexible and un-adaptable. Given a few hours, she and Ishi could design seals to counter elemental jutsu or drain chakra, make a stockpile of tags, and counter specific techniques dozens of times using only a token amount of chakra. But in a battle, she would be limited to what she had already made.

For a kunoichi with no clan or ninja relatives, and a psuedo-genius with nothing but time to think up new designs for her to polish to perfection, it was a godsend.

In the week leading up to team placement, she had already finished up with a single use, hemi-spherical, barrier array, which would repel anything solid trying to pass through it until running out of chakra. She had mastered and modified exploding tags, making a simple flash-bang and incendiary tag as well as developing various alternate triggers beyond the simple fuse. On Ishi's recommendation, she had made the triggers "modular" so she should be able to apply them to any other seals.

Storage seals, however, was where she and Ishi had come together and made something beautiful.

Storage scrolls, it turned out, do not actually store objects "in" the scroll; they shunted them into some pocket somewhere to be untouched by air or time. Most scrolls had a mechanism that drew them back if they were damaged, so as not to lose valuable items or intel into the ether when a stray kunai cut open the seal. To an unassuming eye, it seemed like a piece of useless trivia, and a warning in some of the better textbooks to add redundancies and failure points to your array's to prevent unexpected side effects. But to Sakura, it meant that storage seals could be applied to anything, even her person, meaning that not only would she not have to carry heavy things or a pack, but she could lock them and carry weapons or supplies that couldn't be taken away. She would still carry a kunai and shuriken pouch, because a ninja without supplies in the field was just asking for scrutiny, but she decided to design a storage seal to put on her wrist or hands, letting her pull a weapon or similar item from nowhere.

Then Ishi had had an idea, put the seals on here fingers. At first, she thought that it would mean that she could carry 10 items instead of 2 in her personal pocket, but Ishi had directed her to her modular trigger designs, including one that differentiated between multiple effects depending on chakra signals and a unifier that associated signals from multiple points to a governor to generate arbitrary chakra pulses. In essence, they formed a series of switches, and after a short lesson on "binary" from Ishi, she had learned that with her thumbs acting as an activator and 8 fingers acting as "bits" (whatever those were) she could direct the release seal to pick between 256 pockets! All she had to do was remember what pocket each item was in, then channel chakra to different fingers corresponding to the correct pocket while sending chakra to her thumbs to activate the release seal and prevent her from emptying her pockets on accident. Additionally, she needed to separate her chakra into yin and yang elements and send the correct piece to the correct thumb, or it wouldn't activate, so she could still use her hands to manipulate chakra without fear of sealing or releasing something by accident.

Designing and debugging the seal had taken most of her week. Making the flash-bang seal, incendiary seal, and their lesser variants (lantern and torch) had taken most of a day, after she found textbooks that weren't useless and learned the basic syntax of 8 trigrams sealing. (In the future she would make sure to study 5 elements and Yin/Yang sealing, and something called "Uzumaki" sealing, and she could hear her friend muttering about designing a new form of syntax when they had time). And most of that time was spent walking to an empty training field once the syntax errors had been fixed to make sure there weren't any logic errors or logistical problems. Her modular trigger seals and switching seals had take a few hours, and the basic sealing scroll had taken about an hour to decode and remake.

By contrast, she and Ishi had spent a days designing the basics of the array and digging up the references she needed to put it together, a day working out the syntax errors and compressing her first test seal on a blank scroll, and the next 2 days working out the various errors and writing a stealth compression seal to hide the final result of the seal when it wasn't in use. She wasn't sure why Ishi insisted she reinvent the wheel when there was a perfectly good stealth compression seal in one of her books, but that, and the improvements they came up with took 2 days to finish.

At first, Ishi had thought that was enough, but Sakura enabled the pockets to contain multiple items, and release them one at a time, or all at once (she didn't know what FILO meant, but she'd revisit it later).

The seals were inked carefully onto her fingers and hands, making sure not to smudge anything. The writing process had take 8 hours, and she had spent another 4 checking them. she was hungry and tired, but this had the potential to be dangerous or useless, so she was going to get it right the first time. No playing it safe and partially charging the seal before compressing it, she couldn't sit around and wait for her chakra to replenish, not only would it increase the chances of her smudging the seal, she would look ridiculous walking around with the illegible script adorning her hands and wrists. Taking a deep breath, she began compiling the seal.

The ink glowed as she channeled chakra into the seals, twisting and shrinking into its compressed form, it took almost all of her chakra, greedily sucking in an order of magnitude more than any seal she had charged so far, until she started feel herself going to sleep. NO! If she lost focus now, she'd have to start all over, and she would not let the last week have been wasted on her new passion. Strengthening her resolve, she focused, pouring herself into her work. After several long seconds, the array stopped moving, then faded to black, the kanji for "release" and "Seal" on her palms, "Yin" and "Yang" on her thumbs, and the numbers one to eight on her fingers. After a moment, they black ink faded to match her pale skin, until she couldn't even see the outline.

Nervously, she took a pebble she had brought home from the training ground, placing it in her left hand, and, holding her breath, channeled some chakra to the kanji for seal, as well as her left index finger and right pinky.

The pebble disappeared.

She sighed, knowing that at least one function worked properly.

Channeling yin and yang chakra to her thumbs and normal chakra to her left index finger and right pinky, the pebble appeared in her right hand, as the black kanji for "release" became visible.

She and Ishi both yelled with joy, prompting her mother to run in and ask when she was doing. Completely forgetting her fatigue and hunger, Sakura babbled about her project and how it had worked, prompting a blank look from her mother, followed by a reminder to be at the academy on time tomorrow.

Falling back into her desk-chair, Sakura, pulled out several kunai and shuriken, and began testing her inventories functions, ensuring the ordering of the pockets, the ordering of items in the pockets, individual and mass storage and release functions all worked properly.

Each success made her giddy, though that could be the hunger, and eventually, she took out a little journal and began sealing her excess ninja supplies, textbooks, as well as a canteen, tent, and other miscellaneous items into her hands, taking meticulous notes of what went into each pocket, before sealing her pocket's inventory in pocket 255, and her sealing supplies and textbooks in pocket 0.

_"Make sure to include a towel in your inventory."_

'What? why?'

_"You should never go anywhere without your towel, you never know when you might need it. Now that you have an extra-dimensional inventory, I can't in good conscience let you walk around without one."_

'Just...fine, I'll get a towel.'

This had been a good day, she might even break her diet and pig out before going to bed, she though while absentmindedly releasing a pencil from her pocket and sealing it away again.


	2. Chapter 2: Prep for the Future

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto, and if I did, Shino, Chouji, Hinata, Naruto, Sakura, and Lee would be the most prominent characters, and Kabuto would be the big bad,

**Sticks and Stones: Chapter 2**

'I give up, how did you know Naruto would pass.'

_"Psychic scar"_

'what'

_"I have a scar from a curse in the shape of an ancient rune, the scar is psychic and occasionally gives me advice."_

'Really?'

_"No"_

'So how did you know'

_"If I just give you the answer, you'll stop thinking things through yourself, little scholar."_

'Fine, I get that as top kunoichi I'd be on a team with the rookie of the year and dead last, but you somehow knew that Naruto would be a ninja even though he failed the exam. Again.'

_"Yes, yes I did"_

'Oh whatever, I'll figure it out somehow, maybe later I'll ask Naruto how he graduated'

_"A good idea, little scholar"_

'When is our sensei going to get here, anyway? We've been waiting for 15 minutes'

_"If he is late, he is late for a reason, instead of asking when he should get here, you should be occupying your time with something productive, as much as I appreciate the scintillating conversation of the hawk and little fox."_

'Like what?'

_"Did you not bring your textbooks in your pocket? You are in an academy, you may as well study."_

Sighing, Sakura unsealed some textbooks, a notebook, and pencil, drawing a raised eyebrown from Sasuke '**Squee!**' _"ugh"_ .

Opening up a book, she began working taking down notes on the 5 elements seal notation. It, like the 8 trigrams syntax, treated chakra like a collection of infinitesimal packets, with the base unit of chakra having certain properties, however, while 8 trigrams focused on chakra interactions with space, 5 elements syntax focused on tapirs, obviously. You could, in theory, make the same tags with either syntax, but the complexity required and efficiency of the array would vary depending on the syntax.

It was obvious to anyone who had ever used chakra that it was not a collection of finite, discrete packets (at least in practice), but the syntax was general enough to still be usable. It seemed to be particularly useful in regards to elemental transformation, or imbuing tags with elemental effects, it explained why her explosive tags seemed to be low yield, when the flash-bang was so effective. She had some ideas for improving them now, as well as a few other new ideas. She couldn't wait to start testing them. Wind, lightning, and fire seemed straightforward, but water and earth seemed more subtle, maybe if she- "YOU FELL FOR IT! HAHAHAHAHAH"

Her thoughts were interrupted by Naruto's antics. Glancing at the clock, she noticed that her work had absorbed her for 2 hours. Was their sensei here, finally? Had he been sidetracked by a mission or injury perhaps? Had he forgotten that he was assigned a team?

She took in his appearance, gray hair, one eye, standard uniform. He appeared complete innocuous. Clearly a ninja, but not the kind of ninja who would grab your attention, like the Hokage or Sasuke, or even Naruto. He seemed harmless, for a ninja.

_"Christ, he's good"_

'What do you mean? he doesn't look very impressive'

_"Exactly"_

Apparently annoyed by the three genin staring at him, the ninja standing in the door finally spoke up: "Hm, how can I say this?", rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "My first impression is..."

Sakura held her breath.

"I don't like you guys"

Sakura whined internally

_"Ha"_

'Oh shut up.'

* * *

Later, on the roof,

"Lets begin with some introductions"

"What do you want to know, sensei?" Sakura asked.

"Oh, your likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, hobbies, stuff like that."

"Hey, why don't you go first?" interrupted Naruto.

"Yeah" said Sakura, agreeing with her least favorite teammate.

"Oh, me?... My name is Hatake Kakashi, I have no desire to tell you my likes and dislikes, dreams for the future?...maybe in a few years, and I have a lot of hobbies.", prompting unimpressed looks from the trio of genin.

_"Oh he's really good"_

"Now it's your turn, blondie"

"Oh, right, My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like cup ramen, and when Iruka-sensei buys me ramen at Ichiruka's. I dislike the 3 minute wait you have with instant ramen. and my dream, is to surpass the Hokage and have everyone acknowledge me."

"I see. Next, broody."

'how dare he insult-_"shut up and listen to your teammate"_

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke, there are tons of things I dislike, and not much I do like, I don't have any hobbies, and while I don't have a dream, I do have an ambition: to kill a certain main"

Everyone else on the roof stared and gulped

"All right, pinkie, you're up"

Sakura took a breath and said, "Oh, My name is Haruno Sakura, there's a person that I like and my dream is to be strong enough to impress him, I dislike Ino, and my hobby? Well, I guess you could count fuuinjutsu, I spent most of this last week trying to learn it."

Kakashi's eye widened as the genin pronounced her interest in an esoteric shinobi skill, 'Meh, at least she can channel her "love" into something useful'

"Ok team, tomorrow we're going to do survival training"

"But sensei, we did survival training at the academy."

"pfffffffff-ahahahahaha, heh," Kakashi chuckled, "Well, tomorrow you'll be surviving me. And of the 27 graduates of this years academy exam, only 9 will pass tomorrows exam. We'll meet at training ground 7 at six a.m. tomorrow morning. Bring all your gear, don't be late, I'd suggest skipping breakfast, because you'll just throw up."

* * *

At home, Sakura ate dinner, then started organizing the gear she'd be taking with her tomorrow.

'Since sensei said it's a survival test, I'll bring along some extra supplies, maybe some rope and wire, my ninja gear,'

_"Wear long pants"_

'what?'

_"Wear something sensible, If you insist on a dress, at least wear long pants under them"_

'Fine. Now can you think of anything else?'

_"No, now get to your desk, I have some idea's for tags, and you and I both know we can improve your explosive tags, if your sensei isn't impressed tomorrow then you'll be back in the academy for another year."_

'Hey Ishi? What did you mean when you said sensei was really good earlier today?'

_"He's a ninja, a jonin. What's more, he's a legend and a prodigy, the son of a legend and prodigy, and the student of a different legend and prodigy. I know this, and he still manages to look innocuous and harmless, pass off his privateness as peculiarity rather than paranoia like most ninja. I know that's he's dangerous and skilled, and I still find myself writing him off as some mediocre nobody who I shouldn't waste time thinking about."_

'Really? _he's_ a legend?'

_"Yes, Hatake Kakashi, son of Hatake Sakumo, Konoha's white fang, and student of Namikaze Minato"_

'His sensei was the Fourth?'

_"Yes, you are fortunate to have him as a sensei, we'll have to make the most of this opportunity, but first, you have to pass, so get to your desk: we have arrays to design."_

In the end, Sakura was only able to make and charge 12 tags before she was exhausted, 6 high yield explosive tags and 6 lightning tags that, if placed on someone, should shock them with lightning chakra. Ishi dubbed them "Taser tags". She sealed them into her inventory and tried to get to sleep, hoping that the stockpiles of tags she had made over the last week would be enough for tomorrow. She resolved to find a way to circumvent the limitation that her limited chakra reserves imposed on her.


	3. Chapter 3: Beta Testing

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto, if I did, then it would be cannon that Thousand-Years-of-Death were a secret taijutsu technique developed by the Second Hokage.

**Sticks and Stones: Chapter 3**

'He's late again'

_"If he's late,-_

'He's late for a reason, I know'

_"Good, now get out a ration bar, I know you have some, and have breakfast, offer some to your teammates too"_

'But sensei said-'_"that the test would be difficult, you need to be in top shape, little scholar, as will the hawk and little fox."_

'Fine, and I guess I can study while I wait, I have to conserve chakra, so no making seals, but I can still design some for later'

"Hey Sasuke, Naruto, want something to eat while we wait for sensei?" Sakura called out to her teammates as she pulled out some ration bars from a pouch on her belt, using it to mask her inventory.

*gurgle* "Hn" Said Sasuke, as he took a ration bar.

"Sure, Sakura-chan" said Naruto, doing the same.

As the sat down to eat, Sakura reached into her pack, which was there mostly for appearance purposes (She loved her inventory, sooo much), producing a textbook and notebook, happily chewing on her ration bar as she sat down and started working: she had noticed her inventory had pulled at her chakra when she compressed it, even when she had stopped pushing chakra into it; there was something there. She wasn't sure how she could get it to work, but it had potential.

"Hey Sakura-chan?"

"Yes, Naruto?"

"Whatcha reading?"

"Fuuinjutsu textbooks."

"Studying? why? we already finished the academy."

"Because, Naruto, I don't have a clan like Ino to teach me jutsu, or a fancy bloodline like Hinata, so I have to find other ways of making myself useful. I'm not sure if this will let me 'bind demons and shackle gods to my will' but it's something I can learn on my own, and while we're waiting for sensei, I've got nothing better to do."

"That's what you were doing yesterday in the classroom, too." said Sasuke.

"Yes, yes it is." Sakura answered happily, before returning to her books.

* * *

_"The cursed fang is here."_

'The what is where?' Sakura thought, looking up, finally noticing their sensei had arrived, after making them wait for 4 hours.

"YOU'RE LATE" She and Naruto shouted in unison.

"Mah, anyway, let's get started. I have two bells here. You have until noon to get them from me. Anyone who doesn't have a bell when this alarm goes off will be tied to a stump and get no lunch."

'So that's why he said to skip breakfast.' thought the three genin.

"But sensei," Sakura interjected, "there are three of us, and you only have two bells."

"Yes, that means at least one of you will fail this test and return to the academy, once I say 'Go', come at me with intent to kill: you can use any tools you have, even shuriken."

"Heh," Naruto chuckled, "This'll be a piece of cake, you're so slow you couldn't even dodge a chalkboard eraser."

"The smallest dogs always bark loudest."Kakashi shrugged, "Ignoring the dead-last here, start when I say-" he was interrupted by Naruto pulling a kunai and preparing to throw.

Suddenly, Kakashi wasn't there, he was behind Naruto, holding the kunai to the back of his neck. "Slow down, I didn't say 'go' yet."

There was no blur, no warning, no sound, he had simply been in one place one moment, and another the next.

'I'm supposed to beat this guy?' Sakura thought to herself.

_"Nope"_ said Ishi, a tinge of sadistic amusement in his voice.

'Well fuck you too.'

_"Sakura, if he is doing this test, he is doing it for a reason, now think: how do you beat an unbeatable opponent? "_

Sakura took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, her thoughts racing as she tried to determine how to win what seemed to be an un-winnable game.

"Go."

Immediately, Sasuke disappeared into the foliage, while Sakura and Naruto remained in the clearing.

"Shouldn't you be hiding somewhere, Sakura-chan?" Kakashi looked surprised by her inaction, "I can understand Naruto staying in the open, but you should know better then that."

"HEY!"

"I know, sensei, but I want to try some things first."

"Oh?"

Sakura walked up to her teacher and held out her hand. "May I have a bell please, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi was flabberghasted, it was such a _civilian_ thing to do. Hadn't he just told this girl to come at him with intent to kill?

"Sure!"

"Really?"

"No."

"Fine, how much for a bell?"

"They're not for sale."

"I could trade you some custom tags I've been working on for one of them."

"Look Sakura, I applaud your creativity and willingness to use diplomacy to get what you want, so I'll be blunt, you're going to have to take these bells from me."

"Ok, sensei." Sakura said, then walked over to a tree, sat down, and pulled out a book.

"Ano, Sakura-chan, what are you doing?"

"Research, I had this idea for a chakra siphon and I can picture the basic array, but I'm looking for some chakra structures to handle the flow faster and more efficiently, if I get it working, I can use it as a module or template for a lot of different projects I'm working on."

"Shouldn't you be trying to get the bells?"

"Yes, yes I should."

At this point, Naruto finally regained enough composure to make use of Kakashi's apparent distraction to attack.

* * *

'Ishi?'

_"Yes Sakura"_

'Are you sure he's really supposed to be a legend?'

_"Yes, why do you ask?"_

'You saw how he just molested Naruto.'

_"Yes, and provided a lesson about both leaving openings in your attacks and underestimating your opponent that I doubt any of you, especially the little fox, will ever forget. Being straightforward is for samurai and engineers, not ninja or politicians"_

'Are those solid clones?'

_"Yes, yes they are." _Ichi began cackling maniacally, _"hehehehahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."_

_'_What are you laughing about?'

_"With a teammate capable of forming tangible, independently active copies, if Sasuke has half as much potential as Naruto just showed, the the three of you are going to bring the Elemental Nations to their knees."_

'I don't see how, especially when two of us at most are going to be on the same team."

_"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight."_

'And last week, Naruto couldn't even make normal clones, how can he make solid clones?'

_"A very good question, and one you should probably ask him at some point."_

"Friggin cryptic bullshit allusions" Sakura muttered to herself.

* * *

'Sasuke is so amazing'

_"His jutsu repertoire and taijutsu are excellet for a fresh genin, even if his mentality and planning need work"_

'Shut up, his planning and mentality are great'

_"And yet, despite his foresight and tactical flexibility, he is buried to the neck. If the stupidity of your two teammates got up to today is any indication of how your team meetings will go in the future, then I_ need to remember to bring popcorn next time._"_

'How would you even eat it?'

_"Let me have my dreams, Sakura"_

* * *

Sakura meanwhile, went over and cut Naruto down from the tree Kakashi had used in his ankle noose trap.

"Naruto, I'm going to take my turn for the bells now, would you please go dig up Sasuke while I'm working?"

"Why would I want to help that bastard?"

"Please, Naruto?" Sakura pouted, her eyes growing to ludicrous sizes and beginning to water, "For Me?"

"Ok, Sakura-chan, anything for you." capitulated Naruto.

* * *

"Alright Kakashi-sensei, the boys had their turn, so I guess it's time to step up and get those bells."

"Counteroffer: how about you just go back to your book, and I'll go back to mine?"

"Sorry Kakashi-sensei, I finished mine while you were using that earth jutsu on Sasuke." Sakura apologized, pulling a kunai and a paper tag out of her pockets. "Let's see how you like dealing with explosive tags," she said as she clumsily attached the sticky paper tag to the kunai, the throwing it at her opponent.

Unfortunately, she had also managed to stick the tag to her fingers, so while the kunai flew true, about 20 feet to Kakashi's left, the tag remained stuck to her hand.

Both ninja's eyes widened as they realized what had just happened.

"GETITOFFGETITOFFWHATDOIDOWHATDOIDOWHATDOIDOOHMYGODOHMYGOD"

Sakura wildly flailed her arm trying, unsuccessfully to dislodge the tag.

Kakashi froze. _'NotAgainRocksFallLightingBladeKyuubiObitoRinSenseiNotAgainNotAgain'_ and then burst into action, grabbing the tag and ripping it off his prospective student, only to get it stuck on him. He tried dislodging it with chakra, only for it to stubbornly remain attached to his right hand. His eyes widened as the fuse on the tag burned down, he held the tag away from Sakura shielding her with his body, hoping that at least his student would survive the explosion.

He turned away, fortified his limbs his limbs with chakra, and closed his eye.


	4. Chapter 4: Do the Impossible

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto, but I'd be willing to buy him with this bridge I've got to sell you.

**Chapter 4: Do the impossible**

_He turned away, fortified his limbs his limbs with chakra, and closed his_ _eye._

Only for nothing to happen.

After several seconds, Kakashi opening his eyes, and looked at the tag, 'A dud?' he thought?

Then there was a huge bang and a flash of light. His eye burned, he ears rang (after checking the caller ID, he decided to screen the call), but he was alive, his potential student was alive, and that was what mattered. Speaking of his student though...

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" an unharmed Naruto shouted as he ran into the clearing, followed by a dirty and surprised, but otherwise unharmed Sasuke.

"I don't actually know; I guess an explosive tag misfired" Kakashi answered bluntly, still dealing with how close Sakura had come to death by an amateur's mistake with an explosive tag. Where did she even get them? Tags were expensive and she'd only been a ninja for a week.

"Are you OK Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked quickly, panic evident in his voice.

"Yes, I'm fine" Sakura answered dully as she walked away from Kakashi to stand next to Naruto and Sasuke, bring her hands together as she walked, her motions muted and robotic, as though she were in a daze.

*RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING*

Everyone was startled by the alarm.

"Well, it looks like you all failed, as none of you have a bell."

"What do you mean, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked, with the kind of innocent face you can only make when you've done something devious that you're truly proud of.

She tossed something small to Sasuke and Naruto, who both held them out, revealing her gift to be a bell.

Kakashi looked down at his belt, finally noticing the bells were gone, " .little... Well, while it seems you managed to get the bells away from me, by giving them to your teammates and not keeping one for yourself, you're failing the test yourself."

"What? No way! Sakura-chan was amazing, if she doesn't pass then I'll give her my bell." Naruto shouted out hastily

"Hn" said Sasuke, indicating his unwillingness to profit from a (marginal) teammates sacrifice

"Yeah, what Sasuke said!"

"Ano, Kakashi-sensei, if I don't have a bell, then what's this?" Sakura asked curiously, holding out what appeared to be a third bell in her hand.

"Huh," Kakashi stated in shock, "Well then, I guess you three all pass." using his visible eye, though bloodshot, to smile.

"BELIEVE IT!" "Hn!" "SHANNARO!"

"You know what, lets go get a victory lunch as a team, to celebrate." Sakura said, her happiness slowly bubbling over.

"Lunch with my cute little genin? Why not?" Kakashi answered, "There's some things I need to ask you, and some stuff we'll need to go over."

The restaurant was a nice place, if a bit empty. Their waitress had glared at Naruto, but was evidently not going to cause problems for four ninja, one of whom was clearly a jonin.

"Now, Sakura" Kakashi said, "Would you please explain to me what happened during the test?"

"Oh, sure, Kakashi-sensei. When you stopped Naruto for starting early, it was pretty clear there was no way we could beat you in a fair fight. We're just genin, and you're an experienced jonin, as you clearly showed us. So I thought there must be some hidden purpose to the test, which is why I asked for the bells first, and then offered to buy them." Sakura answered between bites of her salad. "But then you said that we would need to take the bells. And so I started thinking how to beat an unbeatable opponent, or how to win an un-winnable game. My first thought was to work together with Naruto and Sasuke, but Sasuke disappeared, and Naruto rushed in headlong. So I decided to wait a bit, let them get it out of their systems, then propose working together. But you buried Sasuke, so I asked Naruto to go dig him up, and decided to stall for time, when I had an idea." Sakura paused to take a sip of water.

"We might be no match for you in a fair fight, but we're ninja: I didn't need to beat you in a fair fight, I didn't even need to beat you. I needed to get the bells. So I pulled out a flash-bang tag, set it on a double timer, so it would go off several seconds after the fuse ran out, then faked it getting stuck to me and freaking out, so you would try to help me. When it looked like it would be a dud, you tried to examine the tag, so all your focus was on it went off. I took advantage of that to grab the bells, then faked the whole 'Oh my god, I almost died' walk of shame to the boys, and passed on the bells when the alarm went off."

"And the third bell?"

"Well, since I was going to be tricky, I decided to commit, the third bell was part of a disguise jutsu. You weren't looking for chakra, and you couldn't see my hands, so you didn't notice me using the jutsu."

Kakashi sighed, "I guess it was too much to hope for that even one of my cute little genin would be normal."

"How do you?" Sasuke asked.

"What?" Sakura and Kakashi asked simultaneously

"How do you beat an unbeatable opponent?"

A dark grin stretched across Sakura's face as she answered, "Simple, you cheat."

"Which brings me to my point, Sakura, you were right to try working with your teammates, even if it didn't pan out. The purpose of the test was to illustrate the importance of teamwork. You didn't need to get the bells so much as actually work together as a team. Naruto, you eventually did go help Sasuke, and you both showed concern for Sakura when she tried to not almost kill us, and none of you were willing to throw the others under the wagon to pass."

"But Kakashi-sensei, if you wanted me to work with the bastard and Sakura-chan, then why were there only two bells?"

"Because, Naruto, being a ninja of Konoha means working with your allies, and putting the good of the team and the village above personal desires and risks. Because, while a ninja who breaks the rules is trash, a ninja who abandons their comrades is worse."

The three genin sat in silence, contemplating there suddenly serious sensei.

"Oh by the way, Sakura?"

"Yes Sensei?"

"So help me, if you **ever** scare me like that again, _I will wreak a bloody vengeance the likes of which has not been seen since the reign of Konoha's Bloody Habanero. __**Understood?**__"_

*gulp* "Understood, Kakashi-sensei, it won't happen again."

"Now, since you're officially genin now, we'll need to go over the regulations for your conduct, both on missions and in your downtime, especially what is and isn't allowed when dealing with civilians. You see-" Kakashi droned out, listing the basic minutia that governed day-to-day shinobi life.

* * *

A little later, as they were eating there dessert (she didn't care if she broke her diet, she was HAPPY today) Sakura perked up.

"Oh, by the way, Naruto, how did you end up graduating, and where did you learn that clone jutsu you used today?"

Sasuke turned and looked at his most orange teammate expectantly, who scratched the back of his head.

"Ehehe, well, its sort a strange story, and-" "Classified" Kakashi cut in unexpectedly.

"Huh" "Hn"

Both Sakura and Sasuke wanted to know more, but knew better to press on a classified issue, they may be young ninja, but they had grown up in a ninja village, and classified meant classified.

* * *

As Sakura walked home in a chipper mood, she thought to herself, 'I'm on a team with Sasuke-kun, True love conquers all'

_"What do you know of true love? You're twelve."_

'Well I don't exactly see you in a lot of successful romantic relationships, Ishi'

_"I'm a cryptic voice in your head, which makes it hard to go on dates. The only people your body can attract as you are now are pedophiles."_

'I'm not going to let you get me down today! I passed, I'm on Sasuke's team, and Naruto has been less insufferable and more competent since graduation. I'm going to be an amazing kunoichi, and get Sasuke to realize we are meant to be together'

_"Slow your role there, little scholar, try being a friend and teammate first, if it really is meant to be, as you claim, then you don't need to force him to recognize it, it'll come in due time"_

'But I want it now!'

_"And I want a body of my own, the power of the sage of six paths, and two, open-minded hotties to be madly in love with me. Oh look, seems like we're both disappointed."_

'Are you saying you want to break up with me Ishi? Don't you love me anymore?'

_"Fishing for compliments with insincere self deprecation would work better if I weren't empathically connected to you and your chakra"_

'Wait, you can feel what I feel? Why haven't you said so before?'

_"I have, it was when I suggested you be honest with yourself and start chasing your blonde classmate instead of the hawk"_

'I don't remember you every recommending I date Naruto.'

_"Your other blonde classmate."_

'IT ISN'T LIKE THAT WITH ME AND INO'

_"Methinks the lady doth protest to much."_

'Shut up, you overgrown psychosis. If you're going to be like that, I'd rather talk about fuuinjutsu.'

_"I'm not going to let you deny your latent deelings that easily."_

'I have some ideas to improve the speed of your chakra siphon, but I don't see what good it will do.'

_"Well simple, you make a chakra storage seal, then have the siphon feed into it, you could have an external reserve of personal chakra, or simple chakra draining tags for an enemy, or conditional releases for integrated seals, or drain chakra from other seals or static chakra constructs, what were we talking about?"_

'Squirrels.'

**_"SQUIRREL!"_**


	5. Chapter 5: History class made me sleepy

**Disclaimer: **If I own Naruto, then I'm also one of the few people who has walked on the moon.

THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

* * *

**Chapter 5: Wax on, Wax off**

'Why am I doing this?'

_"Simple, little scholar, because it serves a purpose"_

'What purpose can painting a fence possible serve?'

_"It makes a fence look nice."_

'I MEAN WHAT PURPOSE FOR ME!'

_"What is your weakest point as a ninja, little scholar?"_

'I'm worst at Taijutsu. I can manage the jutsu I know easily, and even though I don't know any dedicated genjutsu, I can use sleight of hand, clones, and disguise easily enough to decieve most people below chuunin.'

_"More generally, your weakness is physical aptitude. You can't feel it, but I can tell you that between your forehead-"_ , which suddenly had a bulging vein, _"-And my presence, your chakra is stupidly unbalanced towards spiritual energy. Admittedly, you've been improving now that you're spending your mornings doing physical conditioning with your teammates when you teacher leaves you on your own, but the imbalance is still very prevalent. Now please, share with the class what that means."_

'It means my chakra is heavily set towards form rather than substance, which is why I can shape jutsu easily, and why I have less potent and less chakra.'

_"So the purpose of manual labor is to?"_

'Increase the amount of physical energy I have to work with, increase my chakra reserves, the potency of my chakra, and my general fitness.' Sakura sighed, 'So if these tedious chores are there for health and physical training, is catching Tora practice for tracking, stealth, and non-lethal capture?'

_"Yes, what about babysitting?"_

'Protection detail?'

_"Also sex-ed: a kunoichi that gets pregnant at an inopportune time is a drain on the village and knowledge of the consequences of parenthood is very helpful towards promoting responsibility. Grocery Shoping?"_

'Logistical optimization, haggling, and...efficiency in the pursuit of multiple objectives, because you have to search the whole market to find the best deals on everything you need and finish in a timely manner?'

_"Delivery?"_

'Courier missions'

_"Exactly, all of these missions are done to give you a basic taste of a variety of missions without placing you at risk or committing a large amount of time towards any one type of mission. Now, why else would the administration have you baby ninja doing D-rank missions here in the village? Other than the money they make and the introduction to basic mission archetypes?"_

'Well, other than helping the village and helping us personally, I guess, helping the clients? But why would people hire ninja to do simple jobs, it devalues labor in the village, doesn't it? So if the administration want US specifically to do it rather than simply have it done, then there's a reason for it. Politics? Publicity?'

_"Correct, civilians, even civilians in a ninja village, generally frown on the idea of child-soldiers. Having genin do minor jobs like this helps humanize the shinobi forces in the eyes of the public, and helps minimize the size of the dedicated labor force required to perform odd jobs around the village."_

'That makes a lot more sense then jonin hazing genin with crappy jobs.'

_"Your jonin is there to ensure you live as long as possible in a dangerous occupation, they seem nonsensical and insane because they want to protect and encourage you, in addition to their personal insanities."_

'Personal insanities?'

_"All ninja who have worked at it for more than several years are insane. They have to be."_

'What do you mean?'

_"War and killing do not promote the development of a well adjusted individual, and if you remain a shinobi long enough, you WILL be dealing with death, either your target's or your allies'. Even medic nin have to deal with patients they can't save or potential mistakes killing someone. I hope you find a flavor of crazy that suits you."_

'Wait, if manual labor is there to help me improve my physical energy, how would someone like Naruto, with tons of physical energy and not enough spiritual energy, improve their chakra composition with these missions?'

_"A good question, how do you think someone would improve their ability to give form to chakra?"_

'By practicing shaping it how they want?'

_"Yes, how did you do that at the academy?"_

'We floated leaves and meditated.'

_"Can you think of an analogue to those that would help paint a fence?"_

'Something involving chakra and paint? Maybe I could use my chakra to move the paint from the bucket onto the fence instead of using a brush?'

_"Try."_

'How?'

_"It's your chakra, the manifestion of you will and soul into the world. Try to interact with the paint and see what happens."_

'Ok'

* * *

Kakashi watched his cute little genin paint a fence, their groans and pained expressions warmed his heart. He should have passed a squad years ago, he got paid, did little work, got to enjoy the pain his minions experienced as their souls died piece by piece in the face of tedious, unimportant labor. He noticed Sakura seemed to be spacing out, while Sasuke and Naruto subtly held a passive/aggressive race to paint the most fence. Just as he was about to toss a pebble at Sakura, though, she bent down to the can of paint, put her hand just above the surface of the white fluid, and focused. He reached out with his chakra senses and noticed she was trying to interact with the paint in some way. After a bit, she rose, the paint leaving the bucket in an amorphous blob, suspended beneath her hand. She seemed to have little difficulty maintaining the paint blob, but judging from the chakra drain, she wouldn't be able to maintain it for more than a half-hour or so before exhausting herself.

'Now where did she get that idea?' Kakashi thought to himself.

She took her hand, and moved the blob to the fence, leaving an even and thick coating everywhere it touched the wood. Seeing the results, Sakura got excited, deposited the paint back in the bucket, picked it up, and ran over to her teammates shouting, "Sasuke-kun, Naruto, you've got to try this!" before demonstrating her discovery to them. Both were impressed with the demonstration (At least Kakashi thought Sasuke was impressed, the pouting made it hard to tell), then asked how she had done it, prompting a short explanation of the interactions between chakra and fluids. After Naruto asked for clarification, his confusion evident, Sakura explained that by pushing chakra out of her hands, she could manipulate the paint to an extent.

Having grown bored of the brushes, both boys immediately tried to replicate her progress, only to find that chakra control was hard. They kept trying, achieving minor successes and covering some of the awful orange Naruto wore, insisting it was not act of war on everyone able to see him.

While the boys focused on their chakra, Sakura returned to the section of fence she had been painting, surprising Kakashi again by picking up her brush and painting without the use of chakra. Unable to focus on his book, (despite Akane-chan being a naughty, naughty girl) he got up, walked over, and asked, "What are you up to, my tricky little minion?"

"Oh, Kakashi-sensei," she answered, as she turned to look at him, "I was thinking about these missions, and I remembered what you said earlier about looking underneath the underneath. So I thought there might be a reason to do these mission other than you simply being a lazy sadist."

"Your faith in me is overwelming."

"So, I thought about what we were achieving here, beyond making some pocket money, and interacting with the villagers, I noticed that I've had a little more chakra after a week of these missions, so my physical energy has been increasing. So I wondered about how these missions would help someone with lots of physical energy and not as much spiritual energy, and thought maybe using chakra would help improve chakra control. So I tried experimenting with the paint, and it turns out dealing with homogeneous fluids is surprisingly simple, if finicky, when you don't need a lot of precise control, like painting a monochrome fence. The boys need spiritual energy more than physical energy, but I need physical energy more than spiritual, so I paint manually to get exercise, and they use chakra to get control. Hopefully, they'll get some insight into using chakra too."

"You really are a clever little ninja, aren't you?"

"I'm just trying to make the most of my time, Kakashi-sensei, the shinobi world is dangerous, even if I'm just doing D-ranks, I should try to get the most out of them." Sakura turned away from the fence to look at her sensei, "Before I forget, Kakashi-sensei, I heard your teacher was the Fourth Hokage, so I was wondering, did you ever learn any fuuinjutsu from him?"

"I like to think I'm more proficient than the average nin, even if I never had his flair for it."

"Would you be willing to look at some arrays I've made? Maybe give me some advice on improving them or projects to work on? I have one that basically drains chakra from an arbitrary source, but I can't seem to get it to work at a rate that would make it useful. And any insight or tips you have to share would be appreciated."

"If you give me some copies of your notes or the arrays, I might be inclined to look them over."

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei"

"Now get back to painting the fence, minion, it'll take longer to finish now that Sasuke and Naruto are struggling to impersonate Jackson Pollock over there." Kakashi said, gesturing to the boys. Sasuke looked like a mime, and Naruto had apparently managed to replicate the effects of a paintbomb, splattering the street, fence, and himself with white paint. Both blinked owlishly at each other.

After a moment, Sakura burst out laughing, followed by the rest of Team 7.

* * *

And so, the next 2 months passed, Team 7 did missions, Sakura experimenting with chakra to develop control exercises for her teammates (Raking leaves by using a tube as a chakra blower had been their favorite) developed new seals (With some oversight by Kakashi and Naruto's clones standing in as test subjects), and coming up with games to make the boring missions more interesting. Having a genin stand in as a thief, kidnapper, or assasin (armed with waterballoons) to make babysitting, catching Tora, or delivering a package made the glorified chores tolerable. On a side note, Naruto was such a cheater in those games, fucking clones...

The motley crew grew closer, three orphans, a crazy girl, and the voice in her head becoming fast friends, Sasuke even smiled once, though that may have been fumes from their cleaning supplies that day.

Sakura even found something about Uzumaki sealing. It wasn't much, but an obscure passage in one of her books mentioned the First Hokage and his wife, Uzumaki Mito (was she related to Naruto?), using his Wood jutsu and her Uzumaki sealing to suppress the bijuu, seal them into people or objects, and pass them around to the other villages as a gesture of peace.

That settled it, if Uzumaki sealing could suppress the walking disasters that were called bijuu, then she wanted to learn it. Maybe she would ask Kakashi-sensei about it after she finished her next project, an expanding chakra containment seal to help her store more chakra.

With a groan she realized Ishi had been right, Fuuinjutsu apparently could bind demons, though she was still leery of binding gods to her will.

_"And yet you still doubt me"_

'Of course I do, according to you, the ten tailed beast is a tree.'

_"Fucking Demi-urge taking a nonsensical form just to screw with me"_

'I'm going to ignore that.'

* * *

Eventually, however, Kakashi requested a C-rank mission, much to the surprise of Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke, and Iruka.

"Are you sure they're ready for it, Kakashi?", asked the Hokage, in his sagely way.

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't think they were up to it."

"You got to be joking, Hatake-san, they've barely just graduated from the academy and you want them going on C-rank missions already?" asked Iruka, betraying the ghasted state of his flabber.

"Mah, don't worry, if anything goes wrong, I'll be there to handle it, but you're underestimating my minions here, they'll be fine."

_"You know, he's handed us missions dozens of times, but I don't think I'll ever get over the Hokage's appearance as a kind old grampa"_

'What's wrong with looking old?'

_"Nothing, until you remember he's an old_ _ninja.__ He's lived through two shinobi wars, and fought S-rank opponents, even after his prime. Sarutobi Hiruzen is one of the oldest, and most dangerous, ninja on the continent, and I can't help the urge to sit on his lap and ask him to tell me a story"_

Sakura struggled to suppress a giggle at that image, before focusing once again on her surroundings.

"If you are so confident in your students, Kakashi, then I suppose I can give you a simple bodyguard and escort mission.

_"Uggh, friggin escort missions and useless NPCs"_

'When I think that the voice in my head is crazy, it makes me much less confident about my mental state. Just so you know, Ishi'

"That's awesome, " Naruto shouted, as he jumped up and down in jubilation at the prospect of not having to deal with that evil cat or Sakura's water balloon attacks (using storage seals to carry around hundreds of balloons was cheating, friggin seal users) "Who are we guarding, a daimyo? a princess?"

"A bridge-builder"

Naruto's mood fell fast enough to catch fire on reentry, prompting a subtle eye smile from Kakashi.

"Send in the client"

"I paid for ninja, and you're giving me these brats? They don't look like they could kill time, much less protect me, especially that stupid looking short one."

"HEY, YOU DRUNK OLD MAN-"*thud*

"No killing the drunk old man you're being paid to protect Naruto, I know this is your first C-rank, so I'll let it slide, but don't let it happen again."

"Sorry, sensei."

"Team 7, you have accepted the mission to escort the bridge-builder Tazuna to his home in the land of waves and protect him as he finishes working on his current project. You depart tomorrow."

_"Make sure to pack extra food and supplies, because it's time for a Team 7 ROAD-TRIP!"_

'I wonder what the weather is like in wave country this time of year.'

* * *

There were cicada's chirping outside her window.

And the wind would irregularly tap a tree branch on the glass.

And the house wouldn't stop _groaning_.

And she was sure that the ticking of her clock had suddenly gotten louder. Probably sabotage by an enemy ninja to prevent her from performing well on her first real mission.

'Ishi? Would you tell me a bedtime story? Like you used to when I had a nightmare?'

_"I suppose I could. That book mentioned the First Hokage and the Kyuubi, so how about I tell you that story."_

'How would you even know that story?'

_"Yggdrasil crashed and trapped my in a variable time loop."_

'...just tell me the story'

_"As you wish."_

_"Once upon a time, before the hidden villages formed, in the time when ninja clans warred with each other at the drop of a hat, or fought with bandits at the drop of a hat, or pirates, or samurai, or lesser demons. Just don't drop hats around them. Two young boys met each other, separated by a river, One named Hashirama, the other Madara. They skipped rocks across the river to the other, talked and laughed, and even though the river was too deep and too fast for them to cross, they formed a friendship over that river, and passed it across with the stones they would skip._

_Unfortunately, Hashirama was of the Senju clan, Madara an Uchiha, and eventually, the fued between their two clans complicated their friendship, as their respective families would like nothing more than kill a scion of their rival clan. So the friendship ended, but was never forgotten._

_Years later they met on a battlefield, and in his desperation, Hashirama proposed an idea: an alliance of clans, villages where ninja could grow and learn in peace, and the endless skirmishes between clans could end._

_Madara agreed, wishing nothing more than to stop the deaths of his family members, knowing that he and his childhood friend were too evenly matched to guarantee victory. And thus, the rivalry between Uchiha and Senju ended, and Konohagakure no Sato was born."_

'But what does that have to do with the Kyuubi?'

_"I'm getting to it._

_As the source of the dream of peace, Hashirama Senju was named the First Hokage of the new village, and for a time, there was peace. Other clans formed similar villages in other nations, Konoha became allies with some of them, enemies of others. However, there was one village that established a true friendship with Kohona, Uzushiogakure no Sato."_

'The village hidden in the whirlpools? I've never heard of it.'

_"It has since been destroyed, but there was a time when Uzushio and Kohona were as brothers, their alliance cemented when Senju Hashirama married a princess from the strongest clan in Uzushio: Uzumaki Mito, a beauty with pale skin, slender form, and crimson hair that seemed to burn with her passions. The Uzumaki spiral became a symbol of trust and fidelity in Kohona, and is, to this day, a part of the standard Konoha uniform."_

_'_I always wondered why that spiral was on the back of the chuunin uniform, I thought it was a stylistic statement, not a political one'

_"And so Mito moved to Konoha, bringing her mastery of the Uzumaki's fuuinjutsu with her. It was she who first taught Senju Tobirama the finer points of Fuuinjutsu and chakra theory, which he expanded upon to form his own unique library of jutsus, the source of his legendary status. _

_Time passed, and Hashirama decided to stand down as Hokage, to allow another to lead, so that his dream of peace would outlive him. The clans and civilians of Kohona cried out for Senju Tobirama to take the seat of power, believing his wisdom would bring as much prosperity as his older brother's strength had. But Madara, who had hoped to succeed Hashirama himself, was angered by their decision; he viewed the choice of the people as a plot to maintain Senju hegemony over the Uchiha, so he went to his clan and tried to raise them in rebellion, to take power over the village for the Uchiha clan, but his cousins would not rebel: they had peace and wealth, parents lived to see their children grow up instead of having to bury them in their youth, and pride means little to a ninja compared to life._

_So Madara set out on his own, issuing a challenge to Hashirama: a duel to the death in three days on the river plains to the north of Konoha._

_But Madara knew there was no guarantee he could defeat his friend in battle, and so sought out to prepare. If his clan would not help him, he would find allies who could be made to help him. He had been given power by the eyes of misery, growing from the despair of his brother's death, and his resolve was tempered by paranoia and madness. _

_On the third day, Hashirama set out to meet Madara at the agreed upon place, bringing Mito, to witness if he was victorious, and to say goodbye if he fell. When they arrived, they found Madara accompanied by the Kyuubi, swirling tomoe visible in its blank eyes. _

_The battle lasted for days, their jutsu carving the earth beneath them and piercing the heavens above; as Madara and Hashirama were powerful beyond the scope of normal men, and had not been equaled before or since. The river plains were dug out, leaving what is now called the Valley of the End, but despite many minor wounds, neither man could finish the battle._

_But even as they tired, the Kyuubi did not, its malevolence and strength not limited by mortality, and so as the battle progressed, Madara, aided by the enslaved beast, had the better of the battle._

_Hashirama, in a desperate gamble, called upon his greatest art: Senjutsu. He had come to peace with himself and the world around him, and gained dominion over plants and all living things. His chakra and wood jutsu, as a result, were potent enough to first withstand, and then overpower, the entropic corruption of the bijuu's power. _

_Startled by the loss of his slave, Madara made a mistake, and took a fatal wound before losing control of his chakra and being swallowed by the earth. Ending the battle, but leaving Hashirama with no means of pacifying the Kyuubi. He had no sharingan, and no other Uchiha had mastered their eyes too the extent that Madara had, so none would be able to command the fox to go from that place peacefully, nor could he release it without risking it attacking the village he had worked so hard to protect. He could feel it rebel against its containment even then, and no simple construct would serve to hold the Kyuubi's might for long, leaving him with needing a way to kill an immortal beast."_

'Cheat.'

_"Yes little one, he cheated. Mito, having witness the battle, and he husband's despair at his powerlessness against this threat, came down from where she had hidden. Realizing that no prison or weapon of steel or wood could hold or kill the kyuubi, she turned to her clan arts, the arts that made her almost as fearsome in battle as her husband: Fuuinjutsu."_

_'_Fuuinjutsu?'

_"Crafting a seal as elegant as she was, herself, she bound the beast inside herself, using her own chakra, empowered by the seal, to suppress the beast for as long as she lived. She was the first jinchuriki of the Kyuubi, and inspired by that day, Hashirama and Mito went forth and captured all nine bijuu that wandered the land. Creating more jinchuriki, using the power of human sacrifice to bind the beasts that terrorized all before them, entrusting the various nations with the arts to replicate the feat and the responsibility of guarding the beasts and their hosts, shaping the future of the elemental nations."_

'zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz'

_"Good night, little scholar"_

* * *

"Sakura-chan?"

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Why didn't you pack anything for the trip?"

"Ano, Kakashi-sensei, I don't understand, I've got everything I could possible need for a long trip right here." Sakura said, pulling several scrolls from her pouch.

"Right," said Kakashi, "Just making sure."

"Fucking fuuinjutsu users," Sasuke muttered to himself


	6. Chapter 6: Rule 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any other intellectual property referenced in this story. I can't think of a joke to go with it this chapter, so instead I'll recommend Worm by wildbow, starring Taylor Hebert, the girl who's more ninja than anyone in Naruto save Hamura Ootsutsuki.**

Author's Note: Here's a bonus chapter to celebrate what appears to be the final showdown between Naruto and Sasuke. Chapter 692 made me think, "Dammit Sasuke, this is why we can't have nice things." Chapter 693 made me think, "Dammit Sakura, you devolve into simpering crush NOW? You tried to kill Sasuke personally at the Kage summit, but now you're proclaiming your love in response to his SPECIFICALLY STATED INTENTION to murder the 5 Kage and take over the world? It really reminded me why I wanted to write this fic.

* * *

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 6: Don't Talk about Team 7**

Several hours into their walk, Sakura was happily humming to herself. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the client was busy grouching at Naruto, and she had just had a truly brilliant idea on how to expand on some of her more basic seals, Standardizing the triggers and Chakra outputs to let her modularly recombine templates and interfaces was, in retrospect, a fantastic idea. It was so peaceful: she didn't think anything could possible go wrong for her today.

_"Dammit Sakura, that's a rookie mistake and you know it."_

'What are you talking about?'

_"You just tempted Murphy with a 20 oz steak."_

'Don't be silly Ishi, Murphy doesn't want to be fed, Murphy wants to hunt.'

Her internal admonishment was interrupted by two nin wearing masks and clawed gauntlets jumping out of a puddle and slicing Kakashi-sensei into several pieces.

"One down," said the first.

"Four to go" finished the second.

_"Called it"_

Sakura froze. Kakashi-sensei was dead? Was she going to die? Was her whole team about to die?

_"SAKURA!", _Ishi shouted, startling her from her fugue, _"Pocket 21"_

Right, her barrier seals, she had almost forgotten about them.

'16 and 4 and 1 makes 21,' she thought, channeling chakra to her left index finger, ring finger, and right pinky. producing a tag attached to a kunai, which she promptly activated and threw to the ground at her feet as Sasuke sprung into action. A pale bubble, almost reminiscent of a soap bubble shimmered into existence, separating herself from the outside world. She absently noticed that Tazuna was in the bubble with her, while Naruto and Sasuke were on the outside. But did it matter? These ninja had killed Kakashi-sensei, at best she had bought herself a minute or two until they managed to drain the barrier of chakra or break it down with physical force. She looked sullenly at where her teacher had fallen, deciding that it would be marginally worse to watch her teammates die than look at her teacher's corpse.

Wow, she new people could use wood as an innuendo, but she had no idea Kakashi was that much of a pervert.

Wait.

That wasn't a corpse, that was the splintered remains of a log.

_"Praise the log for it is good."_

'Not the time for your cult nonsense'

_"You too will come to see the divine beauty of the log."_

Ignoring Ishi's drivel, Sakura focused, trying to see if she could spot Kakashi-sensei hiding after he had substituted with a log to fake his death. Sasuke seemed to have the enemy nin handled, while Naruto seemed to be struggling not to run away. But everything was going to be ok: Kakashi-sensei was alive somewhere, the enemies were stuck to a tree by the chain that connected them, no-one had been hurt yet, oh, and the client was safe too.

Until, suddenly, the chain disconnected from the ninja's gauntlets. they ran past Sasuke, one towards Naruto, and the other straight AT HER!

Only to smack face first into the barrier.

Evidently the enemy nin were not only unobservant enough to miss Kakashi-sensei's substitution jutsu, but also able to miss the shimmer of her barrier tags. Unfortunately, that impact was apparently enough to shatter her barrier, Leaving the concussed nin to fall senseless at her feet. Thinking quickly, Sakura pulled out a Taser tag and slapped it on the back of his neck, then jumped back as he tried to stand shakily. He stared murderously at the young kunoichi.

For 3 seconds

His screams could be heard for miles as he convulsed on the ground while lightning coursed through his body.

This time, he didn't get up.

Sakura looked up, noticing that Naruto had finally done something, his clones restraining the other nin while Sasuke practiced his left hook. The original was bleeding, but the wound didn't appear to be life threatening. Or at least, not life threatening without immediate intervention. Deciding she had nothing better to do, picked up a stick and began poking the ninja she had somehow taken down. As she poked him (following the strict guidelines of ANBU stick-poking procedure, taught to all Kohona ninja) she realized that her barrier tag had been much less effective that she had hoped, she had really liked that design too, oh well. Turning over the body and checking a pulse, she noticed 3 things:

1\. This ninja was a missing nin from Kiri

2\. He was not dead, only unconscious.

3\. Fried Kiri nin smelled nothing like fried fish.

Absently slapping a chakra draining tag on the nin, then walking over to the other and doing the same, Sakura realized that it was probably good that her barrier had failed here to these bozos. Her barrier specifically prevented raw energy and solid impacts from passing, water jutsu would pass through it like spoiled milk through Naruto. It would stop weapons, Fire, Lightning, and Earth (In theory) but water and wind were a huge hole in her defenses currently. She began pondering how she could fix it, and make her barriers more durable, as she patted down both ninjas, emptying their pockets of weapons and cash. They didn't have any orders or documents on them, but one had several vials labeled 'poison' and 'antidote', each seeming to be one dose. She casually threw one to Naruto.

"Their weapons were probably poisoned, you should take that after you wrap up the wound."

"Thanks, Sakura-chan"

"Yo," said Kakashi as he appeared in a swirl of leaves, prompting Naruto and Sasuke to look over at the splintered remains of a log and realized what Sakura had figured out during the fight. "I'm proud you did so well-"*slap*

"How DARE YOU, KAKASHI-SENSEI, YOU CHASTISED ME FOR FAKING A DANGEROUS SITUATION TO SCARE YOU, THEN FAKE YOUR DEATH IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT?! OF ALL THE CALLOUS, INCONSIDERATE, AND PAINFUL THINGS YOU COULD HAVE DONE, YOU DO THIS?" shouted Sakura. Then her face softened, and she started crying, "I thought you were dead, Kakashi-sensei," she said, hugging him.

Kakashi awkwardly patted her back with one hand, and touched his face where a red handprint would be visible if not for his mask, trying to comfort his minion when the other two minions joined the hug. "I'm sorry Sakura, I needed to figure out why they attacked us, they wouldn't drop their gaurd as long as I was here."

"New rule," Sakura sniffled out, "No Dying."

"Hm?"

"Rule 1 of Team 7: No dying. Not for real, not to fake during a fight, from now on, you 3 better be immortal, because if you die, so help me, I will find a way to drag you back from the pure world and make you regret your foolishness."

"Mah, I guess I could agree to that. Sasuke, Naruto? any questions, or something to add?"

"Hn"

"What Sasuke said."

"So what's rule 2 of team 7? If you seem so insistent on implementing them"

_"Don't talk about team 7."_

'Shut up'

_"Just let me bask in the love."_

"I'm sure I'll come up with something appropriate, Kakashi-sensei."

"So you three are all OK? Naruto, you've bandaged your wound? Sasuke, you're not hurt? Sakura, you didn't get any backlash from that lightning jutsu you just pulled out of nowhere?"

"Hn"

"What Sasuke said"

"It was a fuuinjutsu tag, not a lightning jutsu."

"I think I need to read your notes more carefully in the future; but first, perhaps Tazuna would like to explain why we were attacked by Kiri missing nin on what should have been a simple C-Rank escort mission?"

"Alright, its a long story," Tazuna began, explaining the poverty of wave, caused by extortion and and embargo imposed by Gato. How his thugs roamed the streets, beating anyone who showed the slightest defiance, taking whatever they wanted, how they hadn't had the money to hire ninja for an B or A rank escort, and how the only hope of wave freeing itself from Gato's suffocating economic grasp was the bridge Tazuna was building.

_"Gato is an idiot."_

'How so?'

"_There are two ways to gather wealth: the first is to take, the second is to make. If Gato really has a monopoly on shipping to Wave, then there is no reason for his extortion or impoverishing a nation. Poor people can't pay money for goods. By salting the earth like this, he is trading a minor increase in short term profit for anything approaching sustainability. Killing the golden goose, as it were."_

"Well minions, it seems that the scope of the mission drastically exceeds what you're prepared for, so it's time to head home."

"But sensei, we can't just leave him alone, Gato will kill him, we have to help!"

"Naruto, the next enemies will be jonin, not chunin like these guys-" "These idiots were chuunin?" "Quiet, Sakura, I'm talking. The next enemies will be much more dangerous, and I'm not sure I'll be able to protect you."

"Hn"

"Sasuke's right, we can't just back down now because things get a little scary."

"The boys are right, we've come all this way, we can't just let this drunk old man stagger off to his death."

"Well, if you're sure about this, I guess that I'm outvoted. We'll continue with the mission."

'So what do you think Ishi? can we handle it?'

_"I don't just think you can little scholar, I know you can"_

* * *

Later on the road,

"Kakashi-sensei?"

"Yes, Sakura"

"Would Konoha accept non-liquid assets in lieu of a cash payment for a mission?"

"Typically it depends on the client, but yes, Kohona's generally pretty flexible about form of payment."

"Oh, so why didn't Tazuna just do that, offer partial ownership of the bridge or get a loan or something?"

"Tazuna? Care to explain?"

"You mean I could pay with property or something?"

"Yes"

"YOU MEAN I'M STUCK WITH THESE BRATS WHEN I COULD HAVE REAL NINJA?!"

"All this was spelled out in the manual you should have received when you were applying for a mission."

"..."

"You didn't read the manual, did you."

"...no."


	7. Chapter 7: The Plot (and mist) Thickens

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

**Sticks and Stones: Chapter 7**

Being attacked and burdened with the fate of a nation made what had once been a pleasant stroll into a death march. The money and weapons she confiscated from the demon brothers did little to pacify Sakura's dread, substantial though both were, (It seemed like missing nin tended to carry most of their possessions on them, almost as if they didn't use banks.) Each shadow promised a new foe, every sound meant imminent death.

And Naruto and Kakashi apparently didn't notice that they could be attacked aT ANY MOMENT AND THEY SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT THE MANY SHARP IMPLEMENTS THAT MISSING NIN MIGHT POKE THEM WITH.

Eventually, the chipper Naruto and Kakashi's calm demeanor managed to lift her spirits to the point the trip was bearable, only for the coast to spit up a thick mist, exacerbating everything that had slowly eaten her confidence to start with.

The boat ride had been pleasant enough, and it looked like Tazuna actually could do something other than drink and complain, judging from the massive bridge that loomed over them as the crossed into wave country.

She wasn't sure she could take this much longer, she'd either kill herself or Naruto if he didn't STOP THROWING THOSE SHURIKEN AT EVERY BUSH, ROCK, AND PUDDLE THEY PASSED!

_"SQUIRREL!" _"THERE!" *thunk*

"Huh, he was right, there is something there. " Sakura said idly, walking over to the bush to see what it was. "Naruto, you know the last Vorpal Rabbits were exterminated during the Warring Clans Era, right?" she said as she held up the white rabbit that was still twitching from it's near death experience.

_"Aw, that's not a squirrel, it's just a smeerp."_

"GET DOWN!" Kakashi yelled, knocking over Tazuna and crouching low.

The trio of genin dove for cover, each barely avoiding a flying cleaver, preliminary analysis sizing it somewhere in the realm of "Stupidly Huge" as it flew just over their heads and embedded itself in a nearby tree, just in time for a man (homeless judging from his lack of a shirt) to land on it, boasting confidence by exposing his unarmored back to the assembled ninja, and it was clear he was a ninja, no civilian would wear that kind of face mask, or be able to jump 15 feet up and land on that sword, Sakura supposed.

"Sorry, Sharingan Kakashi, but the old man is mine," said the man.

_"I want that sword."_

_'_Not the time, Ishi'

_I. want. that. SWORD!"_

"Minions, this enemy is on a whole other level. I'm going to have to take this seriously," Kakashi said, reaching up to his forehead protector, "Protect Tazuna, and stay out of the fight, that is your teamwork here."

"Kakashi-sensei, I have to ask, at first I thought it was just you, but this guy clinches it. Is there a jutsu you learn to be legible through those masks, or do you have to demonstrate proficiency with talking through them before they're issued to you?"

The mysterious enemy, Kakashi, and Tazuna all looked at the young kunoichi as if her neck had grown 20 yards and become prehensile, while Sasuke was staring at his teacher as if he'd spontaneously grown an eyeball. Naruto, seemed to be finally grasping that jounin rank wasn't a prize from a box of crackerjacks.

"Interesting brat's you've got there, Kakashi." said the enemy as the teacher let out a groan, before disappearing, sword and all from his position.

Everyone turned as his voice came from the nearby lake, "Hiding in the Mist jutsu!" he called out from his position standing on the water.

_"What's next, spawning fish?"_

Ignoring Ishi's levity, Sakura's focused on her breath as the air stagnated around them, the fog _"Mist."_, began to grow thicker until she couldn't see her teammates or client despite their position several feet away.

"There _are_ **eight** targets" came a voice, "_Kidneys, _**Heart, **liver, _lungs,"_ it was coming from everywhere, "spine, **Subclavian artery**, _Jugular vein,_ and brain.", she could taste blood, feel her heart beat in her ears, the mist was drowning her, malice pouring down- "**CALM DOWN!**" came Kakashi's voice, interrupting her reverie. "I won't let my comrades die."

And somehow, his words made it so she could breath again. This was more dangerous than she'd expected, but if she stopped here, she'd never amount to anything as a ninja, and she refused to join Izumo and Kotetsu as Ornaments on the main gate when she returned to Konoha.

"We'll see about that." came the assasin's answer, from RIGHT BEHIND HER! She started to turn in panic, when she felt a kick propel her away from the scariest man she'd ever met, as she fell back she watched as Kakashi stabbed the enemy, who ...popped?...leaving a deluge of water, another copy _"Clone"_ appearing behind her sensei, swinging that stupid _"awesome"_ cleaver, who also fell, turning into a shower of water, as Kakashi appeared behind the assasin, holding a kunai to his throat.

"It's over" Kakashi stated clinically.

"Please, you can't win by imitating me like some chimp." came the reply.

Before Team 7 could blink, their sensei had been kicked into the lake, and trapped in a bubble of water held from the outstretched arm of the assailant.

"This'll be easier if you can't move, so you'll have to wait for me to finish dealing with your brats."

"HE CAN'T MOVE AS LONG AS HE MAINTAINS THIS PRISON, TAKE TAZUNA AND RUN!" Kakashi shouted to his team.

"Dammit Kakashi-sensei" Sakura groaned, then took a deep breath.

Her response was unexpected enough to make the ninja pause.

"It's been literally ONE DAY since we established rule one, and you're already trying to break it. We're ninja, and your comrades, so even if it means disobeying your orders, we're not going to leave you to die just because you made a mistake and got yourself captured."

"Ninja? you little kids?" the masked man snorted "A ninja is someone who walks the fine line between this world, and the next. Someone who has faced death multiple times, and still lives. Until you've done that and earned a place in my bingo book, you can't call yourselves ninja."

"Dammit Sakura, take you teammates and run, you can't win this fight. Zabuza Momochi earned his rank as a genin by casually slaughtering an entire graduating class from Kiri's academy before he had even started training to be a ninja. " Kakashi frantically shouted, hoping to scare away his genin, "He's bloodthirsty, ruthless, and has years of experience that you don't".

"You should listen to your betters, little girl, beating someone like me is impossible for spoiled little brats like you." the man they now knew was named Zabuza answered, forming a handsign, causing a clone of himself to rise from the water in front of him and step onto shore, and was promptly barraged by kunai, all of which the clone blocked with a cloned copy of Zabuza's cleaver.

Unfortunately for him, the cleaver couldn't block the low yield explosion from the tags Sakura had attached to her weapons.

*Boom*

As the smoke cleared between Zabuza and the genin, Sakura called out, "I don't care if it's impossible to beat you, we're stilling going to do it, " she snapped her fingers, causing a pair of red shades to appear in her hand, putting them on she shouted, "JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?"

Zabuza looked at the genin, then at his prisoner, and said, "If these are you students, then you have my condolences."

"Naruto, Sasuke-kun, Attack Pattern Gimel!" Sakura ordered her teammates.

"Right, Sakura-chan!" "Hn", they answered, jumping forward.

A moment passed.

"Wait... Sakura-chan? What's attack pattern Gimel?" Naruto asked, as he looked at her with confusion

"Knowing this is a mercy killing makes me feel better." Zabuza said to Kakashi, not sure what to make of the three children's clumsy attempts to attack him.

"DAMMIT NARUTO, we went over this already, just...just do the thing we came up with for Tora"

"Got it."

Naruto tossed a kunai to Sasuke, then began throwing a veritable rain of kunai at Zaubza, who caught the first kunai almost lazily, and used it to deflect whatever subsequent kunai he couldn't simply dodge with his limited range of motion.

Only for all three kids to smile, as Sasuke seemed to pull on nothing with all his might. Zabuza felt wires dig into his toso, looking back, he saw the several kunai seem to curve midflight, and pass him again.

Then Sakura grabbed the kunai that Sasuke had been holding, only to throw it high into the air. Zabuza could feel the wires shift as the blade followed a lazy arc.

* * *

It should be noted, that electricity always tries to disperse itself, and followed the path of least resistance to do so. Air is a terrible conductor, so electricity almost always flows through a medium to reach the ground, where it can disperse to the earth with minimal effort. Metal, contrarily, is a fantastic conductor, as is water, so if, for example, an electric charge found itself at the end of a wire, which was still in midair on one end, and attached a kunai being held by or in flight wrapping around a wet man standing on a lake on the other, it would follow the path of least resistance right through that man into the large body of water and then the earth. Coincidentally, if that man happened to be holding an orb of water in midair from on arm, as no path connect the orb to the earth other than the man himself, the VAST majority of electricity would ignore the orb of water entirely.

Zabuza didn't know these things, anymore than he knew Sakura had her Taser tags in her possession, but when he felt the wire begin digging into his skin, he knew something was about to happen, something bad.

* * *

As the Taser tag went off, Zabuza Screamed, his prison collapsing. Unfortunately, as Sakura throwing the kunai as soon as as she planted her tag to prevent shocking herself, the knife soon fell into the lake, providing a shorter path to the ground than through Zabuza, but it had served to free Kakashi from his prison. With one jounin free and on his guard, and the other slightly crispy, it didn't take long for Kakashi to overpower Zabuza, But just as he was about to land the killing blow, two needles impaled Zabuza's throat, making him fall limp.

While the genin stared dumbstruck at the body, Kakashi looked to the source of the senbon, verified it wasn't a new threat, then pulled out his ANBU issue stick, and began poking Zabuza with grace and precision developed over years as an black-ops captain.

"Did my tag burn off his eyebrows? I didn't think I was that good at making them yet."

"No Sakura, he didn't have eyebrows to begin with."

"You can't let me have anything, can you Kakashi-sensei?"

Sakura walked up to the corpse, freeing up Kakashi to focus on the new arrival. She reached for Zabuza's neck to take a pulse, pronouncing "He's dead" after a few seconds.

_"SWORD!"_

'Fine, Ishi, I'll take the sword.'

The then put her right hand on the back of Zabuza's neck, taking the handle of the sword in her left. She focused for several seconds, and the blade vanished from it harness on Zabuza's back. Then she finally tuned in to the conversation, just able to catch the a masked nin (a Kiri Hunter, based on the mask and headband) say "-kill Zabuza for a long time." Now if you'll excuse me, I need to dispose of the body." and promptly flicker to the corpse, pick it up, then flicker away.

Team 7 and Tazuna stared at each other, unable to believe that the fight was over, when Kakashi started to tip over and say, "Heh, guess I overdid it with that fight."

Sasuke turned over his prone teacher, then lowered Kakashi's headband to cover the jounin's left eye, "He's unconsious with chakra exhaustion, he'll be fine with time. Tazuna, do you live near hear? He's useless now, so Naruto and I will have to carry him."

The three genin walked on in silence, following Tazuna to his home, hoping that this would be the low point of the mission.

_'Ha'_

'Shut up, Ishi.'


	8. Chapter 8: Knowing is Half the Battle

**Disclaimer: If you come to a site with the word 'fanfiction' in the name, click to a section named after a popular franchise with hundreds of thousands of entries, and find this story and need to be told that I don't own the franchise this fanfic is being written about, then I have a bridge to Wave to sell you. **

**Because No, you haven't found the one story that Kishimoto decided to write and post to this site among the ocean of stories random teenagers have written and posted on this site. I don't own Naruto. (yet)**

**Sticks and Stones: Chapter 8**

'Why did you even want me to take this thing?'

_"I know you are young, so I'll let that question go. But simple put, this sword cannot be beaten."_

'1. We beat Zabuza, despite him having this sword, B. I don't know how to use a sword, and Third, even if I did, it wouldn't matter because I can't even lift it'

_"This. sword. CANNOT. BE. BEATEN."_

_..._

_"But seriously, this sword was one of the 7 swords of Kiri, they all had special properties, if the stories are correct, this is an artifact of chakra manipulation of some sort, or an incredibly potent Fuuinjutsu weapon, if the rumors about Shibuki are anything to go by."_

'A weapon that I can't use.'

_"And what can you learn from this weapon?"_

'I suppose I could try to deconstruct the array to get some idea of how it works, maybe try to apply whatever is special about it to some of my work'

_"Damn Straight"_

* * *

They had focused on establishing a perimeter, Sakura quickly wrote out several dozen tags with no purpose but to fail on proximity to chakra, activating a small lantern tag from a distance. Naruto and Sasuke went and placed the tags on the shore and in the woods around Tazuna's house, conveniently located just outside the main village. Naruto's clones finding places to hid the tags so they wouldn't be damaged, and Sasuke marking the location of each tag on a hand drawn map. Meanwhile, Sakura trapped most of the doors windows with either flash-bang tags, or simple 'bang' tags to serve as a nonlethal alarm and warning against assassins, an alarm that shouldn't hurt or kill random civilians.

When Sasuke and Naruto returned with a map, Sakura placed each lantern tag on the map to correspond with it's trigger. Forming a map that should light up if any person cam withing 100 meters of the house, showing the location of their visitor on the perimeter, which was placed on a table in the center of the room, so no one would miss it should the perimeter 'alarm' go off.

Kakashi had shown no sign of improvement on the trip or since. He wasn't getting worse, but that wasn't much comfort to the resident's of the house. Tsunami (Tazuna's daughter) didn't seem to understand that her guests were ninja, not helpless children, and kept trying to mother the poor, wet, scared dears who had escorted her father and his ninja bodyguard home, much to Naruto and Sasuke's consternation.

Everyone gave Sakura shocked looks when she conjured a massive blade from nowhere, and began staring intently at the blade and handle.

"Ne, Sakura-chan, isn't that the sword Zabuza had on him? Where'd you get it?"

"From Zabuza's corpse, obviously, Naruto."

"Why didn't we notice you carrying that?"

"Oh, Sasuke-kun, why didn't you just ask? Fuuinjutsu."

"Fuuinjutsu."

"Yup"

The mothering tapered off after that.

* * *

Reading a seal typically wasn't difficult, which was why Ishi and Sakura could work together on arrays without much trouble. Reading an array in a syntax you were unfamiliar with was harder, but with time, you could generally figure out the gist of it. You might not be able to truly master it and understand all the nuances of it's use, but you could figure out the general algorithms used. So with time, creating an analogous seal was possible, even if it wouldn't necessarily be a polished or efficient as the original.

Reading a seal that had been compressed already was far more difficult, and The Decapitating Cleaver had been finished, compiled, and put into use years ago. She didn't even know the syntax, but judging from the spirals that were prominent in the design, the maker had either used, or been inspired by, Uzumaki sealing. The only conclusion she could reach was that the array was passive or reactive. It had no chakra source to draw from, and didn't react to external chakra at all, but the array was active; so either it passively scanned for some trigger before reacting, or it simply was always on and had an incredibly subtle function with essentially negligible chakra costs.

_"Blood"_

'Hm?'

_"That symbol, 4 chains surrounding the kanji for iron, it means blood."_

'That conclusion isn't making me feel particularly great about this, and it'll take weeks to figure out anything appreciable about this seal.'

_"But something eventually is more than nothing ever."_

Their musing was interrupted by a groan. Looking over, she saw that Kakashi was awake and trying to sit up.

"Good morning, my cute little genin."

"It's 4 p.m., Kakashi-sensei" Sasuke said flatly.

"I got lost on the road to life, and that's why I had such a late morning?" Kakashi managed to get out after a few seconds, smiling with his eye.

No-one was quite sure how to take that.

"So, Naruto, report."

"Oh, right sensei, well, after you passed out, Sasuke and I carried you here to Tazuna's house, then we set up a perimeter with some of Sakura's tags, and trapped the windows and doors, that map will light up whenever someone walks past the tags, and then we just waited for you to wake up."

"Good work keeping you heads and continuing the mission, you three, and the perimeter especially, we certainly might need it, because I'm fairly certain that Zabuza is alive and that hunter nin was an accomplice."

Sakura's, Naruto's and Sasuke's eyes widened, as they slowly turning to look at the sword Sakura had been working on.

The sword that belonged to a dangerous Missing nin

The sword that belonged to a dangerous, LIVING, Missing nin

The sword that belonged to a dangerous, LIVING, Missing nin with a grudge against the team in general and Sakura specifically for beating him, shocking him, and getting in the way of his contract.

"Shit"

"Sakura, where did you get that sword?"

* * *

"Anyway, if I'm correct, Zabuza will be out of action for at least a week, and if I'm wrong, it'll take a while for Gato to find a different mercenary to kill Tazuna. So we're going to use that time to increase your training. The three of you have made the most of your time so far, and your progress has been good for fresh genin so far, so I'm going to introduce you to an exercise that I'm actually surprised you haven't found for yourselves yet." Kakashi said, as he hobbled out into the woods on crutches, leading his genin to a clearing surrounded by tall and thick trees.

"Alright!, is it a cool jutsu, sensei?" Naruto asked jubilantly.

"Yeah, Kakashi-sensei, how are we going to be training?" Sasuke contributed.

"We're going to be climbing trees." Kakashi smiled at the disappointment that grew on his minion's faces, before turning away from them again and walking up a nearby tree, crutches and all, as though it were a horizontal surface.

"Holy crap, Kakashi-sensei, that's awesome" Naruto cried out, "How do we do that?"

"Simple, you channel chakra to your feet and use it to stick to the tree."

Comprehension dawning on her face, Sakura asked, "Is this how you and Zabuza were walking on water during your fight? And how can you do that with the crutches if you're only channeling chakra out your feet?"

"Walking on water is a more advanced exercise, master this and maybe your chakra control will improve enough to try learning it. As for the crutches? I'm just that awesome, now get to it. A running start will help you progress; use a kunai to score a gash in the bark of your tree to track your progress, now get to it."

"Hn"

"Sasuke's right, we're gonna get this in no time."

Both boys ran towards a tree, confident they'd be the first to reach the top, determined to beat the other.

Naruto fell almost immediately, landing in a heap at the base of his tree. Sasuke managed a few steps before the bark of the tree shattered, launching him back into the air, giving him enough spin to land a backflip.

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Both boys looked at Sakura, who was _cartwheeling_ up and down her tree. "THIS IS AWESOME!"

She ran to the underside of a branch, conjuring a standard issue 10 foot pole with a snap of her fingers, pushing it up to the branch she was hanging from, focusing for a second, then pushing herself down to hang from the stick, which remained fastened to the tree branch above it. She then pulled herself up, placed the bottom of her foot on the pole, and let go, suspending herself in a standing position from the bottom of the pole, which was suspended from the bottom of the tree branch, despite there being no obvious grip between herself, the walking stick, or the tree. She laughed as she hung there, her hair brushing the grass beneath her.

"Well Sakura, it seems you have this under control. Naruto, if you don't work harder, she might beat you to the Hokage's hat.

"Yatta! Sakura-chan, you're amazing. How did you get it so fast?"

"Just feel the flow of chakra from your body to the tree, see how much you need to stick, and how much you can use without breaking the tree and pushing yourself away from it." Sakura lectured, as she swung back to the trunk of the tree, her walking stick vanishing, and began walking around the trunk and branches, defying gravity like a rose-haired MC Escher. "Then just practicing 'till it's second nature."

"That's right Sakura, and since you mastered this so easily, you'll be guarding Tazuna as he works on the bridge tomorrow." Kakashi said with a smile, "Now, other, lesser minions, get back to climbing, you won't improve your chakra control standing there like idiots." prompting Naruto and Sasuke to jump into action. Neither gave any outward sign of following Sakura's advice to feel the chakra flow and interaction, but each attempt they made was a clear and major improvement over the previous.

After watching for several minutes, Kakashi motioned to Sakura and they began to walk back to Tazuna's house.

"You know, Sakura, I've really been impressed by your growth, all three of my cute little are growing up so fast. Naruto has probably made the most physical progress, now that the holes in his education are finally getting addressed, but you took my advice to look 'underneath the underneath' and ran with it. Making the most of your mornings with the boys and getting as much improvement out of D-rank missions shows a mindset beyond your age."

"Well when you told us to be there early and didn't show up for your own meeting, it was pretty clear we were supposed to be doing something with that time that we couldn't do on our own and didn't need you for. Doing some basic training and brainstorming with Naruto and Sasuke-kun seemed like the best choice."

"Your logic is impeccable. You've become quite the devious little kunoichi, and I noticed you emptied the demon brothers pockets after the three of you beat them as well as taken Zabuza's sword from his 'corpse', so I'm going to have to give you a warning: looting corpses and downed shinobi is discouraged unless you are absolutely sure they're dead and no-one is around. Stripping a prisoner of weapons is fine, as long as you absolutely have them secured first and the area is secure, but dead shinobi sometimes turn out to be living shinobi waiting for you to let your guard down, so you might want to cut back on that in the future."

"But Kakashi-senseeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii," Sakura whined, "how will I improve my pick pocketing without practice, sleight-of-hand is important for subterfuge, showmanship, and intimidation of enemies."

"And that's all very well and good, but if you want to practice sleight-of-hand, I can teach you to cheat at cards or do magic tricks, you shouldn't endager yourself and your team by approaching hostile shinobi unless you have to."

"Fine, Kakashi-sensei, I won't do it in the future."

"Now, this week is more important for you than the boys. If you've been learning fuuinjutsu, then time to prepare for a known foe in one of several distinct locations is a major advantage. So tell me, where are we likely to be attacked?"

"At Tazuna's house or at the bridge."

"You get a gold star, Sakura, now start thinking about defensive measures for those locations that you can implement subtly in a week without endangering the workers or Tazuna's family. What do we know about Zabuza."

"He uses mist, water jutsu, assasination techniques, intimidation, and kenjutsu, but he doesn't have his sword, so he's going to be angry when he comes looking for it, and his accomplice used senbon with lots of precision, so the fake hunter nin is probably a lot more precise in combat. The water jutsu makes me think he's more likely to attack at the bridge, but since Tsunami and Inari will spend most of there time in the house we'll need to find a way to protect themselves or warn us if they're attacked while we're away or Zabuza tries to take hostages"

"Very good, how would you counter those things."

"Maybe get a desiccant to deny or limit the effectiveness of his water jutsu, sand could work. My barrier should block senbon without problems, but it limits mobility, so I could give Tazuna a few tags activated manually and tell him to use them to prevent stray hits or sneak attacks if we're attacked. I can make an alarm and locator tag for the civilians to signal us if there's trouble. We can't exactly place a bunch of traps on the bridge without endangering Tazuna and his workers, but I could set up a perimeter to give us some warning if they attack, or we could set traps in a nearby area and try to lead Zabuza into it once he shows up." Taking a deep breath, Sakura continued

"The biggest problem is Zabuza's mist, limited visibility hinders us a lot more than it hinders him, especially since you use a doujutsu in high level fights, Kakashi-sensei. So I could probably make a heat emitting tag to try to disperse the mist, but it would only work in a small area, and as a battle of attrition, making mist is easier than dispersing it in this humidity. I have an idea to set up little tables or alcoves with lantern tags stuck to the bottom surface, to direct the light at the ground and help improve visibility in the mist, if I can work out how to change the color of the light my lantern tags emit to make them amber or yellow, then I could probably improve visibility a lot. My lantern tags are really efficient too, they take barely any chakra and can run for hours once activated."

"That's...actually a lot more than I was expecting. Any other insight?"

"Well I could make lots of explosive tags, and just try to use enough that Zabuza can't hide from them, or some wide range element attack, but the collateral damage would be problematic. I'll probably think of something else later. I know better than to ask a veteran ninja the extent of their abilities, or I'd offer to try making some tags to synergize with you techniques, but other than your sharingan, one earth jutsu, and konoha's most secret and forbidden taijutsu art, your abilities are a mystery to me sensei. Of course, we could follow some of Gato's thugs, if they really are just patrolling the streets, maybe they'd lead us to Gato or Zabuza so we could gather more intel, or attack preemptively."

"While in general, you'd be correct to suggest taking the initiative like that, but we have to guard multiple people who will be in a variety of places; with me still recovering, we don't have the resources to spend time tracking down Zabuza or Gato, especially when we aren't sure how strong his ally is. If Gato continues to be a problem once Zabuza has been dealt with and I'm back at full strength, we can revisit the idea of dealing with him, but until then, just use this time make contingencies for the fight. Every suggestion you've had is excellent, with the exception of mass exploding tags and using sand as a desiccant, you'd need a ludicrous ammount to appreciably affect his water jutsu on an island like this. For now, set up a perimeter alarm at the bridge; then focus on the lights enough for the bridge and the area around Tazuna's home. Then make barrier and alarm tags for Tazuna and his family two back ups per person. You can mentally design them while guarding Tazuna, but only actually make the seals in the evenings when we're all at base. Set up the light seals as soon as they're done, and set them to activate and deactivate based on one of two master triggers. One for you, and one for me. When guarding Tazuna, keep working on your chakra control, but never let yourself drop below 75% of your reserves. Understood?"

"Perimeter, lights, barriers, alarms, combat ready, understood Kakashi-taichou." Sakura saluted.

"On an unrelated note, have you learned anything from the cleaver you stole?"

"Not much Kakashi-sensei, I think it uses Uzumaki syntax, and I'm fairly certain it uses blood somehow, but that's it right now. If I had more time to study it, or could decrompress the seal to its base state without worrying about damaging it, I could give you a better answer."

"Alright then, Sakura, when we get back to Konoha, I'll get you a book on de-compiling active seals on inanimate objects, and if you ask nicely and make it worth my while, I might be convinced to let you browse my notes on Uzumaki syntax. They're nowhere near complete, but all knowledge on the Uzumaki sealing is typically guarded vary closely."

"Thanks Kakashi-sensei, keep it up and I might forget how close you came to breaking rule #1."


	9. Chapter 9: World-Building Bedtime Story

**Disclaimer: I have not obtained the intellectual property rights to the naruto franchise since I last posted a chapter, and even if you think intellectual property law is bogus (and as an internet user you probably do), I still don't have enough confidence in my lawyer to simply ignore it. **

* * *

**Chapter 9: World-Building through Bedtime Stories**

The fog-lantern seals had taken less than an hour to redesign: Setting a sharp angle on the light emitted was trivial at this point for her, making it easy to have a tag meant for a vertical surface meant to illuminate the ground rather than the particles of water that made up mist. Changing the color had take a while, and she'd needed to switch from 5 Elements syntax to 8 Trigrams syntax to make it work. (Odd that the color of light would be more related to it's interactions with space than its source. Ishi had laughed when she gave up trying to use 5 Elements and took his advice to switch syntax, only to have most of her problems immediately resolve themselves.)

The barrier tags, she already had designed, she just needed to make break out some of her manual trigger interfaces so Tazuna, Tsunami, and Inari could activate their barrier tags without chakra. Making alarm seals was easy, she just made several torch tags, with an independent supressor. When the supressor tag war broken (easily achieved by tearing the paper), the warning tags corresponding to the suppresor heated up, then she simply gave a suppresor to Tazuna and kept the torch tag to herself. Preparing these tags took most of her chakra, so she was pretty wiped out, but all that was left was to hand out the tags (with a smoke signal to act as a locator for each person)

Sakura then learned an important lesson: The human element is, and always will be, the weak link of any form of security.

"I don't care what you say, this is a waste of time. You're just going to die"

Inari was the only brat she'd ever met more irritating than Konohamaru back in Konoha.

"Oh really, Inari-chan? What makes you say that?" Sakura asked, baring her teeth in an expression that might be recognizable as a smile to someone with a degenerative ocular condition and absolutely no understanding of how people express and emotions.

"Gato's too strong, he's just going to kill you too. You should leave before he gets the chance."

"Your concern is-" *inhale*,"-touching," Sakura managed to hiss, "but these tags are for your benefit, and your mother and grandfather's benefit, not mine. Now take the seals or, so help me, I will _cut the seals into your skin to **make **you take them.__"__  
_

Inari saw death and fire in the seal-users eyes, swallowed his complaints, and took the tags before retiring to his room in a dignified manner. He wasn't running away, he just didn't have any reason to talk to the crazy girl who would be dead soon.

"Sakura, no threatening clients or their families with mutilation, even if it's in their best interest" Kakashi swatted her head as a reprimand.

"But Kakashi-senseeeeeeeiiiiii, how else am I supposed to get that passive-aggressive, little pustule to cooperate with the measures put there for his own safety if he doesn't find his continued wellbeing to be enough motivation?" She whined, rubbing her head, ensuring her hair wasn't messed up.

"Getting a child to do what he's told is typically the job of his mother, you should have just told Tsunami that her son didn't care if he lived or died."

"And you call me devious? That's crosses the line into sadistically manipulative."

"Eh, if it works"

"Sadism aside, would you happen to know of a better way to make a locator seal than just making it a chakra beacon? I'm to tired to charge them today, but I can still try to design some that won't broadcast our clients location to every ninja on the island." Sakura asked.

"Nope, that's typically why people don't use locator seals, except to keep track of prisoners."

_"Use a radio signal."_

'What?'

_"Your team has used radios, so you should be familiar with the principles that govern them. Make one seal that emits radio waves of a known frequency, it shouldn't take much more energy than a lantern tag. Then make a receiver tag that measures radio waves to tell if it's gone off."_

'But that would just tell you if it's gone off, not where it is.'

_"Then use the strength of the signal to estimate the distance, and have a receiver measure from two points with known relative location and triangulate."_

'That's actually would work. Any given signal would be traced to one of two possible points in opposite directions, paying attention should eliminate possibility immediately, very few ninja take radio equipment into the field, and all we need to do is pick a frequency in a range that isn't used for communication to prevent anyone from following the signal unless they know to look for it already.'

"You know, Sakura," Kakashi stated calmly, "When you zone out like that, I'm not sure whether the result is going to make me laugh or cry."

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei, but I had an idea for a better mouse-trap" Sakura answered absently, her eyes flickering back and forth between figures and formulas that only she could see. "I can't finish them till tomorrow, but that's fine, because working out the math will take a while. If it works, we'll have locators that don't just belch chakra into the air."

"Well then, I guess its time for both of us to hit the books," Kakashi giggled.

* * *

The next day, Sakura escorted Tazuna to the bridge while Kakashi stayed with Tsunami and Inari, who'd had some argument with Naruto apparently. The boys focused on their training. Both could walk in horizontal and vertical surfaces without problems as long as they focused, but they refused to give up until it was effortless, and both wanted to figure out how Sakura and Kakashi had used a 10' pole and crutches to stick to trees instead of their feet. Each boy refused to give up first.

The first thing she did was set up a perimeter alarm array. She had more time, now that she wasn't panicking, so the alarm could be reset remotely without needing to set up a new tag, and the alarm corresponded to a set of lantern seals on a compass, which would light up to point the direction of the incursion; the intensity of the light would increase to indicate how much charka was near the tag in a given direction, and the directions would rotate with the compass to make it easier to interpret.

Setting it up had take most of the day, and she had to take breaks while charging it to prevent breaking the rules on limiting her chakra usage. By the time the entire perimeter was set up and activated, it was time to head home for the day. It had been a calm day, and done much to repair her frayed nerves after the hectic fights with missing nin.

Tazuna and Sakura's arrived at home base to the sight of Sasuke and Naruto forcing themselves to eat enough food for 5 men, each. Inari seemed to be in a better mood today (though he flinched whenever she got to close to him), and Kakashi-sensei and Tsunami kept shooting each other discreet glances when they thought no one was looking. Desperate to stop her sensei from seducing the client's daughter, Sakura blurted out, "Kakashi-sensei, could you help me check my locator tag designs and test their radius if they work?"

"Sure, Sakura," Kakashi answered, his voice tinged with a barely detectable hint of disappointment.

* * *

The trip into town the next day to buy groceries really illuminated exactly how poorly Wave's economy was doing.

_"Such a waste."_

'I know, what kind of person would drive a place to this?'

_"So much idleness, they have nothing, do nothing, and make nothing. The entire country seems to have just stopped, all because of one man's stupidity."_

Sakura had a run in with some street urchins, and was moved by their plight, so she started passing out candy to the various children they passed on the way home, amusing the more curious one with a few basic card tricks, using a deck Kakashi had given her to work on dexterity and sleight-of-hand.

But other than one bad pickpocket (never try to con a conwoman, kids), the day was peaceful. The thugs that roamed the town saw her forehead protector and instantly knew better than to try starting trouble. She may only be a genin, but she was still a ninja: to bandits and mercenaries, ninja were the monsters that hid under your bed after killing the demon that had previously lived there, and were often identifiable by their distinctive hats, which tended to resemble the heads of demons that lived under beds.

The shopping didn't take very long (unsurprising in a market practically devoid of goods to sell), so she had plenty of time once she and Tazuna returned home to practice walking on the surface of the ocean adjacent to their home base. Stationary water was trivial, barely harder than tree walking, essentially an inversion of the paint blob trick she had discovered when painting fences so long ago. (Had it really only been a month since then?) Standing on water with small waves was harder, but a little focus and she could adjust her chakra flow to compensate for the unstable surface. Walking on a water was more difficult, because she had to keep her balance on an unstable surface, adjust her chakra at a split second.

She could rely on herself to get a sudden cool-down whenever the strain of the activity got her focused, even if the water did ruin her hair and soak her dress and pants.

'I should get Sasuke-kun to do this.'

_"Ew."_

She started to run low on chakra just as she started running through taijutsu katas on the water, so she decided to dry off, producing a towel from hammerspace to do so, and head inside.

_"I told you, always have a towel."_

* * *

Kakashi was proud of his genin, they were learning not to rely on gimmicks and fancy jutsu, patching up the holes in their abilities at a phenomenal rate, and Sasuke and Naruto had made excellent progress on tree walking. Both had already gotten down the basics, but were dedicated to reaching mastery, meaning reflexive usage even through intermediaries and when distracted; having been inspired by Sakura's display the first day. While Sakura had shown a remarkable creativity in combining basic seals to achieve a variety of practical effects. Admittedly, Naruto had scared him when he stayed out all night training yesterday, but he hadn't been hurt in any way. If the three kept up progressing at this rate, they might not be his cute little _genin_ for much longer.

More important than their physical development was their mental growth. Sasuke had started trusting his teammates, even if the indication were subtle, viewing them as more than simple baggage, recognizing that they each had some unique skills. Naruto was starting to learn to work with a team, and happily adjusting to having comrades he could rely on, it helped that his teacher wasn't trying to kill him this time. Sakura seemed dedicated to helping her teammates grow, overcoming both her and their limits, and it showed in everyone's progress.

Tomorrow was the most likely day for an attack, so he should probably stop Naruto and Sasuke from working themselves into the ground today, they already had shown better improvement then he expected them to develop this week. His team was going to be juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust fine.

* * *

There were cicada's chirping outside her window.

Cicada's she was sure hadn't been that loud yesterday.

There was only one possible explanation: A rogue member of the Aburame clan, working for a subversive militant group to undermine the Hokage had trained the Cicada's from back home to follow her and chirp as loudly as possible on important nights to prevent her from being well rested while on missions. That made sense, right?

_"Trouble sleeping ? I didn't think your teammates snored that loudly."_

'Zabuza is supposed to attack tomorrow, this time his partner the hunter nin should be there. We barely won the last fight as it was.'

_"Would you like me to tell you a story?"_

_'_Why not?' thought Sakura tiredly

_"Mmmm, well, last time I told yyou the story of Madara and the Kyuubi, so I suppose I could tell you where the bijuu come from this time._

_Ahem. The world is older than you know, Sakura, and all life on it is connected. Over many thousands of years, the energies of life coalesced into one force, containing the drive of all living things to grow and feed: the demi-urge. The demi-urge gathered together and gave itself both form and substance, becoming a sapling. It grew quickly, as all life gave it strength to grow, and all life demanded it survive. In time, it towered over all the other plants and animals around it, and life flourished. It's mighty branches touched the clouds, it roots and trunk grew thick and strong; so mighty was the form of the demi-urge that all people who saw it came to call it the Shinju, tree of god, and at the center of its branches, there grew a fruit, containing the true essence of life made manifest._

_A woman, named Ootsutsuki Kaguya, seeing that people fought and killed senselessly, that they crawled in the dirt in a mad scramble for joy and power, decided that they needed a ruler to impose order and bring meaning to their ugly little lives. She saw the Shinju, the avatar of the triumph of life over adversity, and was inspired. She climbed the tree, with her bare hands, slowly making her way to the top of that monarch of life, and there, in the heart of the shinju, where the branches were so thick around her she could no longer see the sky or ground, she saw a fruit. Taking it, she ate of the fruit, and **understood. **The power in the fruit granted her something that had never been in human hands: chakra. Thus Kaguya gained power, and the shinju allowed its power to be stolen, knowing that when the thief died, the chakra would be returned to it._

_So shocked was she by the alien energy infusing her being that she fell, and though the ground mercilessly broken her bones, she was alive. Her wounds healed supernaturally fast, and so Kaguya set out to bring order to the peoples of the world. With chakra, she was an army unto herself: the elements were hers to command, and no weapon had the power to slay her. Everyone feared her power, until the entire world worshiped her as a god._

_For a time, there was peace, and Kaguya had a son, who she named Hagoromo. Conceived of a woman with the power of a god, he was unique. He had chakra that was truly his, rather than a gift from the shinju, and his eyes had the power to breach the barrier between the pure and impure worlds. Later, Kaguya had a second son, named Hamura, and while he did not have power over death like his brother, he was strong beyond mortal men in his own right, and had true control over nature itself._

_But over time, Kaguya grew cruel to the people, cruelly punishing them in response to perceived slights and the smallest disobedience. Was if not natural, for the people to bow before their queen and god? Did they not crave the meaning that subjugation brought to them? She was their god, and as such her word was law, any who did not bow to her will was as foolish as King Canute, who demanded the tides turn back on the beach._

_Hagoromo and Hamura saw the pain that their mother caused, and together, with Hagoromo's divinity and Homura's mortality, the cast down their mother. She was sealed in a stone tomb, her powers suppressed, which the brothers tore from the earth and cast into the sky, where it became the moon. And again, there was peace. The brothers spread there chakra across the world, teaching others how to use it, and a new age began._

_But the shinju saw this, and was angered. Its chakra had been stolen by Kaguya, some passed on to her sons, and the rest was now bound to the heavens, where it could never return to its master. In its anger, it sought to reclaim what chakra it could, growing out and devouring all the people within it's grasp. Thousands were killed before Hagoromo stepped forward and did battle with the avatar of nature, using his own potent chakra to protect the world from destruction. He triumphed, after seven days and seven nights, sealing the shinju into his own body, the power of his sacrifice forging an unbreakable cage. He became the first jinchuuriki._

_But he knew that the monster would be released to devour all mankind when he died, so he sought to break its power._

_He could not simply divide its chakra and disperse it, for it simply coalesce again. So he sundered the beast, taking the drives that gave birth to it and giving each its own body._

_From its hunger, he crafted a tanuki, and while the Shinju's hunger was greater than a normal creature's, it had little need for nourishment, so the tanuki had only a single tail._

_From its lust came a cat, and while the Shinju had no mate, it grew fruits, marking its lust as greater than its hunger, thus the cat with two tails was greater then the tanuki with one._

_From its stubbornness cam a turtle, while it's honor gave birth to an Ape, its bloodlust a kirin, its fear a slug, its joy a beetle, and its generosity an ox._

_Each portion of the Shinju was greater than the last, and each beast was stronger than its predecessor, and so Hagoromo came to the last piece of the shinju: its __**understanding,**for the Shinju understood all creatures as they understood themselves, and from its empathy. Hagoromo crafted a fox with nine tails.  
_

_Instructing his creations to go forth, learn, and grow so they may never be brought back together to recreate the monster that had terrorized the world, Hagoromo finished his work and finally allowed himself to rest in the pure world, where he now remains."_

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

_"Good Night, Sakura"_

* * *

**_Author's Note: Sorry for not posting this on Wednesday. I've been swamped recently, and I think I'll be better off posting on weekends then my original plan of Wednesdays. _**

**But Good News, everyone, we're finally coming to the conclusion of the wave arc, which means team 7 will be faced with a serious enough event to justify some character growth and divide S&amp;Sakura from canon!Sakura. I have rough drafts of the next two chapters, but they're both very short and still need some editting. As an apology for taking a week and a half to update again, I plan to post chapter 10 next Saturday and chapter 11 next Sunday.**

**Thanks for sticking with me so far, so have an omake:**

* * *

**Omake: What would happen if Ishi had been the voice in someone else's head**

*drip*

In a sewer, a fox pondered the bars of its cage, just as it had for the past several years.

*drip*

"..."

*drip*

"Goddammit this is so boring, if something doesn't happen soon I'm going to go postal."

*drip*

"I'm going to kill someone: maybe myself, maybe someone else, I haven't decided yet, but death will be involved somehow."

*drip*


	10. Chapter 10: Showmanship is Everything

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and am too lazy to make a slightly clever joke for this chapter's disclaimer.**

* * *

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 10: Showmanship is everything**

The next morning, Tazuna and Team 7 arrived at the bridge to the sight of carnage. The mist was thick, and Tazuna's employees, though alive, lay bleeding on the ground.

Zabuza had made his move.

Sakura quickly activated the fog-lights, revealing a multitude of Zabuza and hunter nin clones on the bridge.

"Well then, Sharingan-Kakashi,", came Zabuza's voice from the mist, "Time for our rematch, I can't wait to take my sword back from your cold, dead hands."

"Hm? You say something Zabuza?" Kakashi said as he looked up from his genin, one of whom he had given a stern glare.

"This match won't be like our last: we haven't even started and it looks like your brat there is shivering in fearing."

"I'm not shivering with fear" Sasuke interupted as he pulled out a kunai, "I'm trembling with excitement."

He poured chakra into his limbs for a boost of speed, and cut down the clones, stopping only when blocked by the real hunter nin.

Suddenly, Sakura's alarm seal began warming up, prompting her to say. "Kakashi-sensei, Tsunami-san needs help"

"Sakura, you go back and help her, I'll handle Zabuza while the boys take on his partner. Hurry back in case we need your help." Kakashi ordered, reaching to his headband, "Tazuna, use a barrier tag while we fight."

"Hai" Sakura answered and dashed off, pulling out her radio receiver and confirming that Tsunami was still at or near her home.

Passing the eviscerated remains of a boar didn't help dispel the dread that had been growing in her stomach.

* * *

She arrived several minutes later to an odd sight: Two samurai stood just outside the door of Tsunami's house, poking at a barrier that blocked the door. She quickly activated a low yield explosive tag, and threw it to the ground just behind the attackers, trusting her barrier to protect whoever was inside it. The samurai didn't even notice they were under attack until they were engulfed in flames, neither even noticed Sakura before she used their pain and distraction to knock them out.

After quickly binding and gagging the apparent attackers, Sakura approached the barrier, seeing Tsunami had apparently activated her barrier tag so as to include the doorway inside her small protective bubble, effectively blocking the door.

"You know, Tsunami-san, you'd have made a good ninja with instincts like that. Are you and Inari alright? Did you see more than these two?"

"We're fine, Inari's upstairs. When those two showed up I was so worried, but I'm glad to know your tags work like you showed us."

"Good to know, now I just need to make sure you'll be safe so I can head back to the bridge and help Sensei and my teammates fight Zabuza." Sakura said as she walked over to her captives.

"Zabuza? You mean the ninja who tried to kill you a week ago? He's at the bridge?" Tsunami paled, "Is my father alright?"

"He was fine when I left." Then, addressing her captive with an innocent grin, "Alright, so I need to know what your odrers were, if Gato sent any other goons to the house, and any plans he has for the bridge today, but you won't tell me just like that, so that means I finally get to practice my enhanced interrogation techniques." Sakura said, snapping her fingers and producing several kunai, a case of salt, a gallon bottle of water, a book of poetry, and a bear trap. "Kakashi-sensei could probably keep you alive and conscious for hours slowly increasing the pain until you'd gladly spill everything just for a chance to die, but I'm just a genin, so I might make some mistakes, especially since I'm in a rush here, it's my first time, so please treat me gently." She paused , waiting for a response, "Oh, right, you won't be able to talk with those gags in your mouths, now who wants to go first?" the ninja asked as she un-gagged her prisoners.

"WE'LL TALK, WE'LL TALK!" both samurai shouted at the crazy girl who had set them on fire and looked to be seriously considering reading them poetry by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone.

"Fine," Sakura sighed, "I guess I'll practice my interrogation skills later."

"We were just supposed to grad the bitch and her kid, so Gato could make an example of them later, all the ninja were supposed to be at the bridge, so he just sent us, please don't hurt us" pleaded the joker with tattoos under his eyes.

"Yeah, we were supposed to take them to base then join the rest of the guys at the bridge to help finish off you ninja when the fighting was done." agreed his cycloptean partner.

"Gato had a back-up plan for it we beat Zabuza?"

"No, we were supposed to finish off all the ninja regardless of how the fight went." supplied Eye-patch, while his partner tried to face-palm at the volunteering of the information.

"Well then, it seems like I'm in more of a rush than I thought. I'll be leaving you here in Tsunami's tender care, but these stay with me." Sakura said, picking up their discarded weapons. "You can handle them for now, right Tsunami-san?" she addressed the woman.

"Yes." Tsunami squeaked out, trying not to upset the little girl who played with swords larger than her and spoke of torture the way other girls spoke of tea-parties, who promptly vanished into the trees.

* * *

Sakura returned to the bridge as quickly as she could, and took stock of the situation. Tazuna was unharmed, standing in one of her protective bubbles. Naruto and Sasuke were standing in a large dome made of mirrors, and Kakashi and Zabuza were engagin each other in a taijutsu brawl. The mist seemed to have dispersed to normal levels, apparently Zabuza had decided not to waste chakra on a jutsu mostly nullified by her fog-light tags.

Suddenly, however, Sasuke seemed to fall, and something changed.

**HateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHate****HateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHate****HateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHate****HateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHate****HateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHateHate**

She fell to her knees as the miasma of hatred boiling over from the monster that wore Naruto's shape. It hated her, hated the dome, hated the bridge, the missing nin, Tazuna, Kakashi-sensei, her lights, the mist. It hated everything.

She could _**feel **_that deep malice for all that the beast saw; not rejection born from fear or ignorance, but the unshakable hatred that came from truly **understanding** something and finding the mere fact of its existence an intolerable insult, empowered by a strength that transcended mere mortals. How could she stand against such potent hatred?

She couldn't breathe. Every muscle in her body seized up in protest, her mind shut down in face of the malevolence before her, and her chakra _shifted._

Suddenly, Sakura's muscles relaxed, she looked down at her hands.

"Huh. This is...unexpected."

* * *

**AN: This was a short chapter, but the conclusion will be posted tomorrow. I couldn't resist a cliffhanger, but I'm not sadistic enough to make you wait a week to find out what just happened. That said, feel free to leave a review or a guess of how the bridge is going to resolve.**


	11. Chapter 11: Razzle-dazzle 'em

**Disclaimer: Still lacking a satisfactory joke for stating my lack of ownership of the Naruto franchise.**

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 11: Razzle-dazzle 'em**

* * *

_And now, the thrilling conclusion:_

"Well wouldn't all my fatguy and elegant gentlemen friends be so envious of me right now?" _Sakura_ said to herself, "I've somehow become the little girl"

*Crash*

"Oh, right, battle, should probably do something about that. Let's see, I could interfere in the fight between Zabuza and Kakashi, and prevent Haku and Zabuza from dying, except I don't particularly want either of them to live. Naruto will calm down on his own soon, Sasuke is either dead or in a proto-comatose state from those ice needles, so I can't help him at all either way, Kakashi looks to be trouncing Zabuza now that the mist isn't a problem and Zabuza is using normal weapons instead of _my_ cleaver, I guess that just leaves Gato and his army of thugs to deal with." _Sakura_ pondered aloud, "And I should probably do something about my appearance. Disguise Jutsu!"

Nothing happened.

"The hell? I've seen Sakura do this a million times, I know how the chakra should flow, why isn't it working?"

_Sakura_ closed her eyes and focused for a bit. "Shit, I don't have chakra. My spiritual energy is there, but since Sakura's not here right now, Mrs. Torrance, her physical energy isn't meshing with it, meaning I have as much chakra as Lee."

Pouting, _Sakura _started jogging to the edge of the bridge, heading towards the unfinished end that she knew Gato would use to unload his thugs from a boat, taking care to circumvent the jonin, genin, and cross-dressing psuedo-nin on her way. "If I can't use external jutsu or physical enhancement, I guess I'll have to play it by ear."

Suddenly the malevolent chakra died out, just as a barge came into view from the end of the bridge from the mundane, non-empowered mist.

* * *

Sakura blinked

She remembered something; something red, something scary. Then, suddenly, she was at the other end of the bridge staring at a barge full of mercenaries. How had she gotten over here?

_'That's not important right now, you have to prevent Gato and his thugs from getting off that boat. Your teammates and teacher are tired and wounded, enough so that a lucky hit from one of these bandits could bring them down. You're the only one in top shape right now.'_

She had to take on all these mercenaries? Even if she was a ninja, there was still a very real chance she'd get hurt, then killed.

_'Or worse.'_

'Thanks, Ishi, for this impossible task'

_'Would I ever give you any other kind?'_

Thinking quickly, Sakura transformed into an older kunoichi with purple hair she had seen once or twice in the village. As the jutsu formed, she fealt a pang of...jealousy? Ishi had never been jealous of her jutsu before, so why now?

_'Focus, it's show time.'_

Clearing her throat, Sakura strode up to the gangplank that had been set up and took stock of the situation.

_'The dwarf in the front, the one in the suit and shades, is Gato.'_

'He came personally to a ninja battle? How the hell did this moron take over a country?'

_'A Thern gave him access to the ninth ray.'_

_'_I don't even...'

* * *

Gato was excited, today his plans would come to fruition. He would kill that meddlesome bridge-builder and his little ninja too. He'd be able to cash in on the generous bounty his missing-nin employee had on his head, and then no one would be able to stop his takeover of Wave country.

As he prepared to walk off the bangplank of his ship, a woman appeared from the mist, pushing the sailor who had secured the barge to the bridge into the water below.

Everyone stared at her as she took a position at the end of the gangplank and pulled out a blade of some kind.

"Who the hell to you think you are?" Gato shouted at the mysterious woman, "Get out of my way or you won't like what happens next."

The woman laughed. LAUGHED. How dare she? Gato made a note to break the woman until she begged to be his slave as soon as he was done here. Then, the woman threw her knife.

In a gentle arc directly over the barge.

Everyone's gaze followed the blade and tag fluttering behind it. This turned out to be a mistake.

*BOOM*_  
_

One hundred and fifty mercenaries, 20 sailors, and 1 Napoleonic business man began swearing profusely as they began to rub the stars from their eyes.

_"_I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF, YOU BITCH!" shouted the bonapartist.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah, no. You may want to look around your boat." the bitch called back.

As he turned around and looked, he noticed more knives, buried into the deck at various places. **Lots** of knives. 'Where the hell did they all come from?' Gato thought, 'You can't walk 5 feet without tripping over a knife.' Each knife had a paper tag either tied to the ring on its hilt or wrapped around the handle.

His reverie was interrupted when the woman shouted, "ATTENTION ASSORTED MERCENARIES, BANDITS, AND THUGS, WE'RE GOING TO PLAY A GAME OF TOLL BOOTH. AS OF NOW, I OWN YOUR LIVES, IF YOU WIN THE GAME, SOME OF YOU MIGHT GET THEM BACK.

RULE 1: SHOULD **ANYONE** TRY TO CROSS THE GANGPLANK WITHOUT A TOLL, YOU **ALL** DIE IN FIRE.

RULE 2: SHOULD **ANYONE** ATTEMPT TO CUT THE BOAT FROM ITS MOORING AND SAIL AWAY, YOU **ALL** DIE IN FIRE.

RULE 3: SHOULD **ANYONE **JUMP OVERBOARD, YOU **ALL **DIE IN FIRE, BEFORE I TRACK DOWN THE JUMPER AND FLAY THE SKIN FROM HIS BONES.

RULE 4: SHOULD **ANYONE** ATTACK ME IN ANY MANNER, YOU **ALL** DIE IN FIRE.

ANY QUESTIONS?"

"YEAH, I GOT ONE, WHY THE HELL SHOULD BE PLAY YOUR GAME YOU GODDAMN BITCH?" screamed a merc from the crowd.

The woman promptly conjured a knife from thin air, threw it at the merc, stabbing him in the shoulder

"FUCK! YOU SHITTY EXCUSE FOR A-" ***BOOM***

A fireball engulfed the offender and the 6 or so men who were standing to close to him.

"THAT'S WHY, YOU BASTARD OF A SYPHILITIC OYSTER AND AN OVERGROWN PUSTLE FROM A WILDABEAST'S ASS." screamed the monster on the gangplank at the shredded remnants of the offender.

Everyone on the boat gulped.

"WHAT'S THE TOLL?" called out a wavering voice from just outside the blast radius.

"Glad you asked. TODAY, I'M FEELING A LITTLE _VISCERAL_, SO THE TOLL IS SUCH: ANYONE WHO BRINGS ME ONE OF THE APPENDAGES OF GATO'S BODY WILL BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE IN PEACE, PROVIDED THEY GO HOME AND RETHINK THEIR LIFE. ONCE ALL 5 MAJOR APPENDAGES ARE IN MY POSSESSION, YOU ALL GET CLEANSED IN HOLY FIRE. IF YOU TRY TO SWIM FOR SAFETY, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT EXPLOSIVES STILL KILL PEOPLE IN WATER, THEY JUST SHRED YOUR LUNGS SO YOU DROWN IN YOUR OWN BLOOD INSTEAD OF BURNING ALIVE." smirking, the woman lowered her voice and addressed Gato directly: "As for who I am, as far as you're concerned, you little leech, I'm the heavenly goddess Amaterasu.

"You really think you can get my men to turn on me that easily?" Gato asked, "I own this-gurk" a scythe cut off his rant, as a mercenary decided to take initiative in protecting himself from the crazy ninja who though nothing of setting almost 200 men on fire. Taking the head he had severed, he walked from the speechless crowd to the gangplank, holding up Gato's head by his hair, and said, "Here's my toll, can I leave now?"

The monster _smiled_ at him, "Yup, just leave your weapons here with me, and you're free to go, congrats on being the first one to pass through the toll-booth."

Quickly dropping his scythe and gato's head at her feet, the man walked calmly past the woman, making sure not to turn his back to her, then slowly backed away down the bridge. When he reached a distance of 20 feet from the beastly bitch, he turned and ran, squealing like a stuck pig.

The escape of one of their own seemed to shake the shock from the remainder of Gato's army. Those closest to Gato's corpse began hacking off his arms and legs. As soon as the limbs were free of the torso, the bandits immediately fell to violence, cutting down anyone who tried to leave with a piece of Gato. Only four more people could escape, and each bandit would be damned if they weren't one of those four. Besides, getting cut open had to be a better death than explosives.

In less than 10 minutes, the boat had been painted red, corpses piled up proving the severity of the brawl. The 3 thugs who were still alive were all injured, and would probably bleed out in the next minute or so.

Not one man had tried to swim for safety or attack Sakura in those 10 minutes.

* * *

_"I'm so proud of you Sakura, that was quite a show. You managed to scare over a hundred adult men into pissing themselves with fear and killing each other, using primarily your words."_

'I think I'm gonna puke.'

_"Don't worry, you will, so get it out of the way now, then go see how everyone else is doing."_

Sakura promptly fell to her knees and began heaving, her disguise dispelling as she did so, no longer able to keep her composure now that the threat of death or worse by bandit army wasn't forcing her to maintain a Flay-you-fillet-you-and-eat-your-soul demonic bitch persona. She had just managed to pull herself to her feet when her sensei, Naruto, and Sasuke walked out of the (mundane) mist to investigate the smell of blood.

* * *

Kakashi was having a superlative day, everything was either great or Oh-dear-god-whyyyyyyyyyyyyy for him at this time. Case in point, Zabuza had attacked in a straightforward manner, and without his sword and the unexpected neutralization of his Hiding in the Mist jutsu had made the fight largely trivial for him. The fight was slow, with more clone diversions and tactics, but Kakashi was trying to get a flawless victory.

However, the client's family had apparently been targeted while they were at the bridge, forcing him to do something that he hated to do: split the party.

Then, the Kyuubi's seal had slipped, not enough to release it, but enough to have Naruto radiate malice and corruption like there was no tomorrow.

So, when he resolved to finish his opponent quickly so he could assess Naruto's condition, he quickly stepped up his game, overpowering Zabuza with taijutsu, before slitting his throat, only to turn around and see that not only had Naruto calmed down, but he had also managed to dispatch Zabuza's hunter nin ally. He'd probably have to talk to Naruto about his first kill, but the battle was over. Sasuke was lying on the ground, filled with enough ice to match his personality, but he was breathing,and therefore alive, despite his apparent attempt to break Rule 1.

That just left Sakura, he thought he had felt her chakra moving further down the bridge during his fight, so he supposed he should get the boys and track down his absent student. Who knows what trouble she could get into on her own?

* * *

"Sakura?"

"They were going to kill us, then move on to the village" a pale Sakura murmured.

"What happened to them?"

"I talked to them, Kakashi-sensei, and they killed each other." She started to stumble away from the end of the bridge. "I think I need to lie down now, Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto and Sasuke walked past Sakura to see what she and Kakashi were talking about. Upon catching the sight of the gore, Naruto started to heave, while Sasuke started twitching. He hadn't seen anything since _that night_.

"Minions, head back to Tazuna's house, try to get some rest. We've had a big day, but we're all alive. I'll clean up, and we'll talk about this later."

"Hn"

"OK"

Sasuke and Naruto walked after Sakura, both in a daze from the remnants of Gato's men. Going and taking a bath seemed like a great idea, maybe they'd be able to sleep afterwards.


	12. Chapter 12: Rule 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Naruto Franchise, or any other franchise referenced in this work.**

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 12: Rule 2**

* * *

Needles.

Needles Everywhere.

Sasuke was nervous. He couldn't track his enemy, or see the attacks in time to dodge completely. He'd mostly only been grazed so far, but his left arm was starting to go numb from the needles that had landed solidly and stuck into his flesh. A quick glance confirmed that Naruto was also bearing a few new piercings.

Any attempt to escape was met with a hail of needles. Dropping their guard was met with needles. Trying to actually pinpoint their enemy was met with needles.

Sasuke was fairly certain he'd have nightmares of needles after this fight.

He strained his eyes, desperately trying to find something he could use or discern some pattern in the strikes.

Then something clicked, and he could **see**.

* * *

'I don't care if they'd make cool traps or attack seals, I don't have the funds to stock senbon or shuriken seals in any appreciable number, and I definitely can't stockpile seals'

_"If you can't buy a few hundred sendon for these traps, then make them. I doubt that Haku carried around more than a few dozen at any given time."_

'Yes, but I don't have a fancy bloodline that lets me make ice constructs.'

_"So? Use fuuinjutsu."_

'I have no idea how to make a seal to craft and then shoot ice needles.'

_"You're over thinking it. Break it down, nothing is particularly difficult if you break it down into small jobs. What are the steps for an ice senbon trap seal?"_

'Well, you'd need to have a concussive force seal to launch the senbon once you have them, and a storage seal to release them and the force in the right direction.'

_"Good, what else?"_

'Since I'm not going to just draft the freezer to make my own ice senbon, I'd need some seal to turn water into ice, and then some seal to shape ice into an appropriate shape.'

_"Very good, now how will you get the water for your ice?"_

'If we're making the seals ahead of time, I can just get a few gallons from the river at our training grounds."

_"Don't be lazy, whenever possible make your seals robust, self sufficient, and passively automatic."_

'Well I can't just conjurge water from thin air.'

_"..."_

'Except I totally can. I can set up a seal to draw in water from the surrounding air. It'll take a while, but I can always stick the seal in a river or body of water to speed it up. The seal work would be trivial to make a self filling water storage seal that draws water from the surrounding area. Making it empty in the next seal in the set wouldn't be particularly difficult.'

_"And the next seal in the set would be?"_

'A week ago, I would have said some elemental seal to make ice, but after pulling apart the seals for Zabuza's Sword, I'd just pirate the space defining seal that establishes the default parameters of the sword, then use an 8 trigrams seal to define an area in which to dump water. In cylindrical coordinates, I can just set a constant radius for the shaft and a linear decrease at the ends for the points.'

_"And the reason for this is?"_

'Because it's easier to mold water then freeze it, than it is to freeze water then shape ice.'

_"And the spacial template can function as a mold in this instance. then you can just make a seal to freeze the water, and deposit it into the actual launcher"_

'So I, what?, use a wind seal to add wind chakra to the water until it freezes?'

_"Nope"_

'Really?'

_"Not even at all."_

'But isn't ice a mix of water and wind?'

_"Sakura, what element is associated with heat?"_

'Fire, obviously.'

_"And what element is associated with cold?"_

'Wind, which is why I'd add wind to freeze the water.'

_"Wrong."_

'Then tell me, oh wise and venerable headache, what element is associated with cold?'

_"None of them."_

'You're being a cryptic asshole on purposed.'

_"Cold doesn't exist, hot and cold water isn't hot and cold, it's just hot and less hot. You can't associate an element with something that doesn't have some objective existence."_

'What does that even mean, objective existence?'

_*sigh* "Hot things are hot because they have energy that makes them move, or vibrate, at an atomic level. You can add heat by adding energy that makes the movement faster, but you can't add 'coldness' to slow them down, you have to draw out the heat."_

'So I take the water and subtract Fire?'

_"Yup"_

'I don't think it'll work, but we can try it.'

_"It shouldn't be too hard to get a heat pump working."_

'Then we just have the launcher and the trigger. A manual remote trigger should work and I can use my chakra detector tags to trigger them, even if it would make them easy to spoof, The accuracy will be good to maybe 10 meters in optimal conditions, so I'll have to set the triggers appropriately.'

_"10 meters? Oh Saukra, oh poor adorable little Sakura: let me introduce you to something called 'rifling'."_

* * *

The Sharingan upgrade hadn't helped much. Sure, he could map the paths of the senbon in flight and identify any paths of escape, but he couldn't create paths where none existed, and reading muscle movements to predict movements didn't help at all when his opponent didn't stay in sight for any length of time.

He was officially scared, not quite at the level that Zabuza or Ita-_That Man _had inspired, but scared nonetheless.

He could keep up his dodging like this for a while yet, (his stamina had grown considerably in the last month) but his opponent gave no openings to counterattack, no respite to regroup and plan with Naruto, and no sign of any strain at the pace that had been maintained for this fight. Attrition wouldn't work, they had no real defense against the swarms of needles that peppered them from every angle, and they couldn't attack an enemy they couldn't nail down.

His grand fireball technique hadn't even caused a pause in the attacks. This was insane, this enemy shouldn't have been more then a minor problem.

He dove at his teammate to intercept an attack Naruto had shown no sign of noticing, one that would have ended Naruto's resistance without doubt.

They collided with a shout from both boys, half surprise and half pain as the impact jarred the needles sticking from their extremities, but Sasuke's momentum was enough to push both boys out of the path of the potentially crippling attack.

_"Good"_ came Sakura's voice from the trees around them, "_You **can **learn. I guess that means I can step it up now."_

Sasuke and Naruto groaned as they got up from the ground.

*_hisssssssssssssss*_

Sasuke made mistake of looking at the tag on the ground in front of him

***BANG***

He reeled backwards, rubbing his eyes in the wake of a flashbang.

"Fucking Fuuinjutsu users," He mumbled.

* * *

'I'm telling you, I can't just make open-ended chakra storage seals to go with the drain tags. Matter storage seals take so little chakra to expand as opposed to establish that the space available is arbitrarily large, but chakra storage seals are the opposite, increasing the size takes the same amount of chakra as filling it. It'd easier to make a seal that just dumps chakra into the air then one that stores an arbitrary amount of chakra for later use."

_"And what do you need to expand your chakra storage seal once it's full?"_

'Chakra, lots of chakra, not something I have in abundance."

_'Gee, Sakura, if only you had a ready source of chakra to draw on when you have a **full chakra storage seal** to make the seal larger so you could get some use out of that chakra later instead of just dumping it into the air and still be able to drain more chakra from your opponents.'_

'Oh, right.'

_'Yes, set a seal on it that draws out chakra when the seal diverts excess chakra into an expansion meta-seal for the storage seal. Bam, effectively unending chakra holding tank, even if it does somewhat decrease the returns of chakra you steal, but you'll have to make a filter seal to remove the emotional overtones from the chakra before you put it in the tank anyway, then apply another filter using your chakra as a template to attune the chakra in the tank to you. You'll get maybe 20% returns on the chakra when you're done with it for later use, but that's still more than nothing.'_

'So I can make a chakra draining tag that expands as it drains chakra. If I get the tags after I use them, I could drain them into a personal seal for later use. It would be more optimal to just drain into a personal tank than have to expand extraneous tags and my personal seal, but then I'd need to attach the drainage seal to a weapon or something not easily lost, and set it up to dump chakra in real time, I'll make that my long term project, but for now I'll deal with spending chakra to expand a two seals. At least I only have to filter the chakra once, it'll lower the returns to 10%, but as you've established, that's still more than nothing.'

* * *

Naruto was scared.

It was a new experience for him.

He'd been worried, like when that bastard Mizuki hurt Iruka-sensei or when he thought Sasuke was dead. He'd been nervous, like when Iruka-sensei caught him playing a prank and was going to start yelling at him. However, he'd never been scared, not like this; he'd never faced this kind of primal, visceral fear of a known foe.

Naruto resolved to pay more attention to Sakura-chan in the future. She'd always been amazing, but now she was downright terrifying.

And needles hurt.

If he made clones, the clouds of pointy, painful objects would pop them like soap bubbles. Trying to find cover was punished with explosives. If he tried to run, he'd end up running into some of the near invisible wires Sakura had strung through the trees and open himself up for a painful electric shock. Substitution would get him out of a tight spot now and then, but it was a delaying tactic at best. Henge was useless here, and he didn't have any other jutsu. He really needed to bug Kakashi for more techniques or make his own somehow, like Sakura had.

Wait.

He did have another technique, it was a long shot, but it wasn't like this could get much worse. He was getting tired faster than normal, so he needed something decisive to end this.

"NINJA CENTERFOLD!"

And suddenly, there was a nude, bombshell blonde in Naruto's place.

Up in the trees, a certain kunoichi thought, 'Damn, she's hotter than anyone I've ever met.' _"Yes, yes 'she' is."_ 'Shut up, Ishi'

The attacks finally paused, for the first time in hours.

Only to begin again almost immediately. However, Sakura had apparently decided to break out the explosives, including several new tags that seemed to shoot steam.

"DAMMIT NARUTO!" Sasuke shouted as he frantically ran in a (futile) attempt to avoid becoming Uchiha Flambé.

The fight didn't last much longer after that.

* * *

"Now what have we learned?" Sakura cheerfully asked as she bent down over the two exhausted boys. Each was covered with innumerable grazes, stuck with several ice senbon which melted slowly enough to allow for coagulation, covered with small burns from steam and explosives, twitching from residual taser shocks, and drenched in sweat from 3 and a half hours of almost dodging many painful attacks from their irate female teammate.

"Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiin," moaned Naruto as he flopped on the ground.

Far away in the land of rain, a man and six corpses sneezed.

"You...*_wheeze_*...cheated." Sasuke gasped, "Never...won...otherwise."

"Bitch, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease," Sakura waved offhandedly, "Of course I cheated: we're ninja. Expecting honor is silly, and expecting a fair fight is stupid. Apparently you didn't get that memo in the academy, so I guess we have a new rule for Team 7."

"What?" both boys asked.

"Rule 2 of Team 7:" Sakura stated, "Cheat, whenever possible."

Both of her victi-Teammates!, teammates looked up at her and blankly nodded, hoping to prevent a repeat of the morning's 'lesson'." Sakura said, glaring at Sasuke.

"I don't care if a crazy missing nin with a near extinctbloodline attacks you and you die protecting a teammate. If _That Man_ shows up and demands your head, Sasuke, you say 'Not today.' If a war party from Stone ambushes you and tries to kill you, you say, 'Not today.' If the damn Shinigami shows up and tells you that today is the day you die, WHAT DO YOU SAY?"

"NOT TODAY!" Sasuke and Naruto shouted back at Sakura.

"DAMN STRAIGHT! You boys are not allowed to die, your lives are not just yours. If you face an impossible foe that will kill you in the blink of an eye, you will cheat and cheat hard until you either win or escape. If you die, so help me, I will bring you back and extract a toll on your souls if I have to ressurect the fucking SHINJU to do it! ARE. WE. CLEAR?"

"YES, SAKURA!" both boys chorused.

"And if you ever think there's a fight that you can't win or escape, and there's no choice but to meet your death, I want you to remember today: the day that I, the weakest member of the team, made both of you my bitches without taking a single scratch."

* * *

'WHY THE HELL WON'T THIS WORK?!'

_"Sakura, you're trying to shift chakra structure outside of a living being. It obviously won't be that easy. The superclass for dealing with units of chakra doesn't allow any mechanism to directly affect the metaphysical composition of the chakra, and you don't know enough about chakra theory to design the filter from scratch. As much as it sucks that you can't just write 'import ChakraFilter;' I don't think you'll be cracking this problem anytime soon."_

'But if I can't get the chakra I drain to match my own, then this whole design is pointless.'

_"I wouldn't say that. Even if you can't draw on the chakra for use in internal chakra expression or jutsu, you can still always use it to charge other seals for you. Besides, you can still just store** your** chakra for later use, as it already matches you, it would be simple to simply reabsorb it for use it later."_

_'_Ok, fine, I'll shelve the chakra repository seal for now, pending further research, and we'll work on your ideas instead, still a shame that it didn't pan out.'

_"Such is life."_

* * *

_How the 'lesson' began_

"Alright, now that the mission is done and we're back in Konoha, it's time for something different while we wait for Kakashi-sensei."

"Sure, Sakura-chan! What did you have in mind?"

"Well, Naruto, now that it won't endager a mission, it's time to address Sasuke's flagrant disregard for Rule 1 back in wave."

"Hn?"

"It doesn't matter if you did it to save a teammate, _or_ if you got better afterwards, you died. Now get ready for your punishment." Sakura said calmly as she smiled pleasantly, before using a substitution to vanish into the trees.

"Hn." Sasuke snorted dismissively, "**SHIT!**" His derision was silenced by a puncture wound on his left arm. Activating his sharingan, he dashed into the foliage, trying to track down his troublesome teammate.

"pffffffffft" Naruto started laughing "AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sucks to be you, bastard!" he called after the victim of Sakura's wrath.

"FUCK!" A puncture wound to the arm killed his humor. "WHAT THE HELL, SAKURA? Isn't this Sasuke's punishment?"

"_My seals punish all without distinction!"_ came Sakura's reply from the forest.

Naruto, wisely, started running after his teammates.

* * *

'There has got to be a better way to make seals than this'

_"I agree, now that you won't be limited as much by chakra, we should look into finding write faster."_

_'_Maybe a seal to write seals?'

"_Or a seal to copy your writing onto other pieces of paper"_

'Start with an ink storage seal and use a sympathetic algorithm to add ink to a paper based on changes to a "master" paper with a corresponding seal?'

_"Sounds good, you'd still need to draw your seals, but you could make tons of copies of uncharged seals, especially if you make the sympathetic copy seals and master seal reusable and refillable."_

'Well lets get to it'

* * *

"Sakura?"

"Yes Kakashi-sensei?"

"What happened to your teammates?"

"They fell down some stairs."

"Stairs with needles, low-yield fire tags, and your taser tags?"

"They. fell. down. some. stairs."

"I assume the stairs took exception to violations of Rule 1?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that statement."

"Well, it looks like we won't be getting much training in today."

"That's fine, Kakashi-sensei, we really should talk about the Wave mission, and some issues that should probably be resolved."

"Oh? What do you mean Sakura?"

"Well, I'm fairly certain all 3 of us have something that we could benefit from sharing with the class."

"Really, then why don't you go first?"

"I guess I might as well, it'll give the boys some time to recover from...falling down the stairs."

*gasp*"Fuck" *twitch*"You"

"Oh Sasuke, you say the sweetest things."

"So, Sakura," Kakashi interrupted, "What do you think you should share with us?"

"It all started on the bridge," Sakura sighed, "When Naruto started bleeding that red chakra, I blacked out."

"Understandable, genin shouldn't really be exposed to that at close range."

"But when I woke up, I was at the other end of the bridge, and since then I think I've been sleepwalking."

All three other members of Team 7 stared at Sakura for a moment, unsure of what to make of that.

_"Dammit Sakura."_

* * *

**AN: Yes, I totally named my profile on this site just for the line in Rule 2.**


	13. Chapter 13: Heart to Heart

**Disclaimer: Did Orochimaru somehow manage to march TWO armies right up to konoha's walls without anyone noticing? If so, I don't own Naruto. If not, I still don't own Naruto**

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 13: Heart to Heart**

"On the day after the fight of the bridge, I checked my tag inventory. I threw out a lot of kunai and explosive tags, but didn't need to detonate them, and I wasn't in the mood to go and pick the all up after...that." Sakura stated, "But the next day my inventory was full, minus the two tags I actually detonated that day. When I checked my inventory ledger, it had the addition of the tags to my stores, and an additional entry called 'Miscellanious', which turned out to be a huge pile of assorted weapons that I assume came from the mercenaries. Weapons that I didn't go a pick up or put in storage."

"If it helps make this weirder," Kakashi interrupted, " The first thing I did the next morning was take the boat out into open water and capsize it with water jutsu, and most of the (intact) bodies sank, so they had something on them that weighed them down."

"So the only time your supplies and those weapons could have been taken was in the middle of that night," concluded Sasuke.

* * *

_In wave the aforementioned night_

'Sakura' lay in bed, staring at her hands.

"So apparently this is going to be a thing," 'she' said aloud, "When Sakura has a BSOD or goes to sleep, I get to come out and play."

*beat*

"FUCK!, I'm like that insane ass-butt Shukaku, aren't I?" Ishi groaned. "Well, might as well do something useful. I don't have chakra, but I can still use the Inventory, and it would be downright _irresponsible_ to leave a ton of explosives sitting on a random boat out by the bridge. Someone could be hurt, it's my _civic duty_ to go out their and get those awesome-I mean dangerous-explosives and loot those bodies."

The walk took half an hour, and the looting took several more, longer than it should have, but even if Ishi had dealt with dead bodies before, the humidity and sheer number of corpses had given rise to a stench that could _almost_ wake the dead, judging by the aforementioned corpses still being corpses.

"And I don't even have any peppermint oil in my collar to help mitigate the smell" Ishi mumble to himself as he went through a headless halberdman's pockets for loose change.

After fulfilling his protagonistic instinct to take everything even remotely valuable, a mania made possible by extra-dimensional storage space, (s)he went to shore and started washing off most of the blood, then started picking up rocks and pebbles, which Ishi deposited in the pockets of any cadaver with pockets.

Then Ishi headed below deck and took anything valuable there as well. Namely: the petty cash for the boat crew, a few books, some barrels of booze, salted meat, and the kind of things you'd expect lonely men on a boat to have to 'pass the time'. Everything Ishi didn't want Sakura to stumble on went into pocket 0, followed by a few dozen pebbles, then the updated inventory ledger. Hopefully, the LIFO inventory system would prevent Sakura from stumbling upon Ishi's stash and 'mad money' on accident.

* * *

_In Konoha, several weeks in the future._

"And the only way for those weapons to get in my inventory is if I put them there," Sakura continued, "But that's not the only thing. After the first night back in Konoha after the mission, this genin I'd never met before came up to me and asked if I was awake. Since then he's asked 3 times, and once he asked me to a restaurant."

"You've be sleep-sleeping around?" Sasuke asked incredulously.

"WHAT?" Naruto shouted.

"Well maybe if you were man enough to satisfy me, I wouldn't have to go looking elsewhere." Sakura countered, turning her head and raising her chin imperiously.

"Describe this genin, Sakura" Kakashi ordered with a sigh.

"Well, he's tall, has gray/silver hair like you, and he wears glasses. I think his name is Kabuto" Sakura answered.

"Yakushi Kabuto?" Kakashi asked.

"Yes, that's his name, Yakushi Kabuto," Sakura snapped. "That would'a bothered me all day, thanks Kakashi-sensei."

"Why would you sleep walk to a genin medic?"

"That's just it, I don't know, I've just been randomly sleepwalking and I don't know why or what I've been doing."

"Or whom." Sasuke interjected.

"Dammit Sasuke," Kakashi sighed, "Just...okay?"

* * *

_Team 7's first night in Konoha._

"Kabuto Yakushi," came a girl's voice from a dark alley, prompting the named 'genin' to turn, "You know, you really are one of the most interesting people in this whole village."

"I'm sorry, miss, your attention is flattering, but I'm very busy and not looking for a romantic relationship right now." Kabuto answered with a small and friendly smile.

"You've failed the chuunin exams, what, 5 times now? are a spectacular medic for a genin, manage to gather all sorts of information you shouldn't be able to find, and no-one notices that there's something off about you, that you're better than you should be, or know things you shouldn't."

Kabuto's smile hardened on his face, betraying his focus on the girl in front of him.

"Of course," Ishi continued, " I suppose that would be all your training from Root. Say what you will about the old warhawk, the ninja who manage to get through his training without becoming completely mentally shattered or physically crippled do tend to be incredibly talented ninja."

Kabuto's smile died.

"Really though, what has got to be the most interesting thing is that you're a double agent so many times over that I doubt even you know where your loyalties actually lie. It's, what, Root to Konoha to Root to Orochimaru to Sasori to Orochimaru? That's the problem with turning shinobi into tools, there's not much to stop someone else from stealing them. So tell me Kabuto, are you loyal to the monkey, the hawk, the scorpion, or the snake?"

Kabuto blurred into action, pushing Ishi further into the alley, pinning 'her' to a wall by the neck, holding a dangerous glowing hand to 'her' heart. "How the hell do you know."

"Path to Victory."

The unexpected response stalled the medic quadruple agent for a moment.

"What."

"I know lots of things Kabuto, I know lots of names, too. Names like Nonou. Would you like to know a secret?"

A very pale Kabuto answered, "Yes," managing to mask his shock from his voice, if not his face.

Ishi looked left, then right, then leaned in very close to Kabuto and whispered, "Everyone, in the world, has tinnitus."

"Tinni-, talk straight, or I swear I will carve out you heart and make you eat it before I let you die." Kabuto _snarled_ out at the girl who casually dropped the name of the closest thing he had had to a mother.

"Chakra." Ishi answered with a smile, "It's a manifestation of your mind and soul, and reflects who you truly are, but everyone is so drowned in it from birth, that you can't hear what it's telling you. I can _feel_ your pain Kabuto. As much as you try to deny it, you're still the scared and lonely little kid with blurry vision, desperately trying to fill that void. Trying to hide the guilt and pain of killing Nonou, hoping that one of your masters will push you into something so deviant and despicable it'll drown out that regret with an evil that's less personal and intimate, or that you'll die and it'll all just be over. You can't trust anyone, because people like Danzo will just use that to hurt them with your trust."

Kabuto dropped the hand that had been aimed at Ishi's heart, grabbing Ishi's left shoulder instead.

"But I'll tell you a another secret Kabuto." Ishi continued, "A secret from someone who knows everything about that death and the events that led up to it: It wasn't your fault."

Kabuto punched Ishi.

"You're not a god, you can't know everything Kabuto, and nothing you could have done to have changed the outcome of that day other than simply dying yourself, and your death would have hurt her far more than hers did you."

Kabuto kept punching Ishi.

"You know it was-"*thud*"-a setup-"*thud*"-she didn't know it was you-"*thud*"She would have done **anything** for you."*thud*"She only took another contract at all because it was Danzo's price for letting you leave Root."

"SHUT UP!" Kabuto punctuated with another punch to Ishi's face. "I KNOW! I know Danzo set her and me up, I know everything, and that's why I can't just be a shinobi for Danzo or the village that made him."

"Of course you know," Ishi said, "Orochimaru told you, but you don't **understand**. Nonou did everything for you, for you and the other kids in the orphanage. Danzo and Orochimaru took that care and compassion, used it to twist both of you into weapons, and dragged you into a game that neither of you could win, then tried to get rid of you as soon as you got too dangerous. But as long as you play their game of espionage and betrayal, you're just going to set yourself up to perpetuate those losses; you can't win that game with men like Danzo, men like Orochimaru. You'll either die in a ditch somewhere and make her death meaningless, or you'll become Danzo to some other kid, and spit on everything she did for you."

"So, what? I should just forget what he did? Pretend it never happened and be a good little Konoha shinobi? Ignore the hypocrisy and let him get away with it?"

"No." Ishi frowned, "God no. HELL no! But don't play his game. Be Kabuto first; try to be the boy that Nonou killed and died to protect, because she'd rather you be happy than he be punished."

Kabuto let go of Ishi and wiped his eyes, (it had started raining on him and him alone during their conversation) "So what now?" he asked.

Ishi grinned and answered: "Karaoke."

Kabuto started chuckling, then full out laughing as Ishi joined in.

* * *

"And my sleepwalking all started the night of the bridge. So either the mental trauma of talking 200 men to death is doing more than giving me nightmares and an appreciation for soy meat, of that red chakra did something. So, Naruto, now that I've bared my new trauma and insecurity with the class, is there something you'd like to share?" Sakura asked.

"Um. I'm not sure it's allowed Sakura-chan. I'd like to, but it involves village secrets." Naruto shyly said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Actually, Naruto-chan, " Kakashi interrupted, "It's your secret, and you can tell whoever you want, they just can't tell anyone once they know."

"Oh," Naruto answered, "Good."

"So?" Sakura excitedly asked, "Is it a new bloodline? An old bloodline? Some fuuinjutsu accident? Another kinjutsu you've somehow pulled out of your ass? Are you pregnant with Sasuke-kun's love child? Did you get a magic box from a dragon? Swim up a waterfall?"

"Sakura-chan, let him talk, and really? magic box?" Kakashi interrupted.

"Love child?" Sasuke asked with a shiver.

"LOVE CHILD?" Naruto shouted.

"What?" Sakura asked, "I can't have fantasies?"

"You can," Kakashi said, "But telling them to the people said fantasies involve is considered tacky unless you are in a serious relationship with them already."

"KYUUBI!" Naruto shouted out, desperately trying to block out the fact that his beloved Sakura-chan not only was fixated on Sasuke, but apparently shipped him and Sasuke as well.

"What?" Sakura and Sasuke asked in confusion.

"On my birthday, October 10th, the Fourth used a seal to stop the Kyuubi by sealing it in me, because he couldn't kill it, and the seal needed an infant as young as possible to hold the Kyuubi."Naruto managed to force out, as he looked at an incredibly interesting pebble.

"Wait," Sakura started, "You the Kyuubi jinchuriki?"

All three boys on her team looked at her oddly. Naruto had expected screaming and revulsion, Kakashi hadn't expected any of his students to know the term 'jinchuriki', and Sasuke was surprised that Sakura seemed to believe their idiot teammate's claims to holding a demon at bay since the day of his birth."

"So are you really an Uzumaki? Or did they just give you that family name to honor Mito-sama?" continued Sakura.

"What? Who?" Kakashi asked.

"Mito Senju nee Uzumaki? The First Hokage's wife? I heard a story somewhere that she sealed the Kyuubi into herself when the First and Uchiha Madara fought at the Valley of the End. So she would have been the first jinchuriki in Konoha, unless we have another biju in a closet on a shelf somewhere. If I had some nameless orphan jinchuriki on my hands, I'd give him Mito's original family name, because you sort of are her legacy. But they might have picked you because you were related to her, in addition to being the grand old age of one minute. Uzumaki are supposed to have really dense chakra and really strong constitutions, so they would have made good jinchuriki." Sakura continued, "But Mito-sama died way before we were born, so the Kyuubi would have had to either disappear or be sealed in someone else. Unless it died with her and just reformed in Konoha years later, which would explain the sudden nature of the attack. It would have to either have been reformed in the village or been released by whoever it had been sealed in before you."

"Um, I don't know" Naruto said, processing the distinct lack of vile gazes his teammates were giving them, "If my parents were Uzumaki, I mean. Jiji never told me if he knew who they were."

"Double Wait," Sakura said, "You're the KYUUBI JINCHURIKI?"

"Yes, Sakura-chan," Kakashi said, "We've covered this, and if you keep shouting out S-class village secrets like that, you'll be getting a lovely free vacation in a tiny room under ANBU headquarters with no windows."

"**CanISeeYourSeal**?" Sakura started begging breathlessly, as she grabbed Naruto by the shoulders and started shaking him for all he was worth.

Sasuke looked at his teammates. One of who was clearly demonic, and one of whom was, apparently, host to a demon. There was really only one thing he could say.

"Fucking Fuuinjutsu Users."

* * *

_AT a Karaoke Bar, in a private soundproofed room, several days before._

"So," Kabuto said, "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Hm?" Ishi asked "What other shoe?"

"Well, you've tried to befriend me, dragged up old trauma, and tried to distance me from other people that I've worked for," Kabuto stated "And you clearly know that I know something, so I'm waiting for whatever attempt you make to cement my loyalty or trick information out of me."

"What information? The chuunin exam invasion? Sand's part in it? Gaara's part in it? The plans for Sasuke? Kimimaro's illness? Juugo's illness? Edo Tensei? The Uchiha massacre?" Ishi asked blandly, "I know just about everything in the broad strokes, and I don't really want a minion so much as a friend. If I wanted a minions, I could get Sarutobi Konohamaru, Hyuuga Hinata, Rock Lee, Inuzuka Kiba, or a half-dozen other equally talented or politically potent individuals wrapped around my finger with some minor affection. Ninja villages really don't seem to understand that giving power to a bunch of deeply mentally unstable people, or traumatizing children in the name of power, is a recipe for disaster. Tools are easily stolen; loyalty cannot be coerced, only earned."

"Do you practice the dark arts?" Kabuto whimpered in shock, staring at the person who had casually spouted multiple major secrets including the planned invasion of her home. "How can you be so blasé, knowing what you somehow know, about the chuunin exam invasion?"

"Simple," Ishi answered, "Konoha will win: Sand is desparate and their military force has been majorly downsized, they're effectively crippled, with Gaara and the Kazekage the only ninja from Sand capable of fighting on the level that turns the tides of battles, but Orochimaru will kill the Kazekage before the invasion, to limit the variables he has to deal with. Gaara, on the other hand, is psychotic, but Naruto has a stronger Biju and a stronger will, and as such will have no problems curb-stomping that annoying raccoon. Hell, with the Kyuubi's empathy sense, Naruto might actually beat the insanity out of Gaara. Meanwhile, you know as well as I do that most of Sound's military force consists of cannon fodder, the kind of one-trick nin that Konoha's clans shred like rice paper. That really only leaves Orochimaru himself, and while, with the Edo-Tensei, he might be able to match either Sarutobi or his old teammate, Jiraiya, he certainly can't match both. Both are better than him, and both have the kind of fuuinjutsu knowledge necessary to negate the Edo-tensei.

Ishi took a sip of water befor continuing.

"The whole invasion is really just a glorified tantruum: a way for Orochimaru to spite his teacher in response to being denied the Hokage's Hat all those years ago. Sure, people will die, but the village will be fine a month later and look all the better for having repelled an invasion with minimal losses. Orochimaru has somehow managed to make a major military action uphold the status quo"

"So you don't want information, and you don't want a minion. Do you really not want anything from me?" Kabuto asked.

"No, I want nothing." Ishi said with a grin, "Actually, I lied, there is one thing I want."

Kabuto motioned for Ishi to continue, relieved that the conversation was finally heading where he had expected it to.

"I want-" Ishi said, "For you to sing 'The Show Must Go On', by Queen, as your next song."

Kabuto face-palmed.

* * *

_MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE HALL OF JUSTI- HOKAGE'S TOWER, back at the hokage's tower._

Sarutobi Hiruzen was troubled.

There had been documents intercepted and encrypted messages decoded that revealed two unfortunate pieces of news.

Firstly, from what he could gather, the new hidden village, Sound, was planning some. major military operation on Konoha, at the behest of his errant student.

Secondly, said errant student had, apparently, improved on the terrible brand he had given poor Anko-chan, and was planning to place it on the young Uchiha heir, who hadn't suffered enough already.

He was lucky to have as much information as he did, only some rather unlucky mistakes on the part of several moles had given him as much as he had. Preparations for the upcoming months would need to be subtle. The potential attack was more pressing, and any fortification would need to be kept top secret lest they give the game away. The targeting of young Sasuke-kun seemed to more incidental, something done from convenience: He would be in Konoha when Orochimaru was there _anyway_, so Orochimaru may as well leash his target while in the neighborhood.

The most obvious way to protect Sasuke-kun would be to simply get him away from Konoha for a while. Simply sending the boy away would be far to blatant, but a long duration, low risk mission would be fine. He could surely get Iruka-kun to find something suitable. Normally, a genin team would have time to recuperate after a disastrous mission like the guard detail in Wave, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

In the meantime he would need to send for his other student. He'd been meaning to get his new books autographed anyway.


	14. Chapter 14:Keep Out of Trouble

**If I were a decrepitly old Japanese man with a position of political and social power, I'd rrefer to everyone younger than me as -kun or -chan. If I were older than 90, I'd refer to everyone as -chan. Also, I'd own Naruto, and have a jetpack, and be a Prince of Amber, but unfortunately I live in the real world, where dinosaurs don't exist and we are bound by the laws of physics. Darn.**

* * *

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 14: Keep out of trouble**

_In the Hokage's Office:_

"What do you mean, you can't find one?" Hiruzen demanded.

"Well, Hokage-sama." Iruka answered meekly, "We have plenty of missions out of Konoha, with duration's of several weeks or months, or low risk, but no mission requests that are low risk, long term, _and _outside of Konoha. Unless you count a few seduction missions, but I sincerely doubt that Kakashi would take another one, after what happened last time. And even if he would, a seduction mission isn't an appropriate mission for a genin team."

The Hokage began quickly leafing through the pile of mission requests on his desk. "We get enough mission requests each day to build an origami duplicate of the tower, and not **one** of them is appropriate for getting a genin team out of the village for a few weeks? What about this one?" He grabbed a folder. "Exploring and mapping a ruined stronghold leftover from the Warring Clans era?"

"The traps in that citadel already put a team of seasoned chuunin in the hospital." Iruka answered flatly.

"Oh..., right" The aged administrator answered, embarrassed, "How is Fujiwara-kun doing, anyway?"

"He was actually released this morning." Iruka responded.

"Good, good" continued the Hokage, "What about this one? Clearing out some bandits, encamped near...the border with Grass country." He grabbed another file. "Stealing a scroll? From the Daimyo of Earth Country. Pass." The Hokage quickly shuffled through several more folders, grabbing various potential missions, then discarding them after a short glance.

"I'm telling you, Hokage-sama, we don't have a mission appropriate for genin that will keep them out of the village for more than a day or two, barring a sudden escape by Tora from the Daimyo's wife's vacation Caravan in Moon country." Iruka said with a shrug, "Maybe something will come up in the next week or so."

"I can't rely on that. If we don't have mission, then we'll just have to make one." The Hokage opened a drawer and pulled out his file on Team 7. "Maybe a training trip. The Uchiha Clan did have a stronghold somewhere in the southern part of the country. It would make a suitable place for Sasuke-kun to take his team for some private training and bonding after their last mission."

Iruka nodded, "Though it would be odd for the Hokage or for their sensei to request a training mission to one of Sasuke-kun's private family properties."

Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed. Explaining the reason for the trip would be problematic at best. Ideally, the genin didn't need to know that _another_ S-rank mission nin had developed a yen for Sasuke-kun. Some days he wished he'd been the one to seal the Kyuubi instead of Minato-kun. Then this headache would be _his_ to deal with.

Wait.

Seals.

Didn't the mission have a note about Sakura-chan developing some custom barrier, trap, tracking, and sensor seals? Maybe an OPFOR was in order. He was sure the R&amp;D department had some toys to test in the field; Sakura-chan and her teammates would be perfect for testing some of her new seals as potential border protection. He could even send them to the most peaceful border Fire country had, the border with River country. The genin would spend a month or so training, placing traps, and practicing border protection and infiltration. If Kakashi-kun thought any of the seals had merit, the village could offer Sakura-chan a royalty to allow mass production, or buy the completed seals from her if she didn't want to publish the arrays.

The Hokage smiled, as he turned towards his assistant. "I think I have the perfect idea."

* * *

_Meanwhile, at Training ground 7_

_"_How did you do it, anyway?" Sasuke asked, having caught his breath.

"Do what?" Sakura answered.

"How did you plant so many traps in the 30 seconds it took me to chase you out of the clearing? I get that all the traps and stuff were just fuuinjutsu seals, even if I don't get how you made them, but there's no way you could have planted them all so quickly after starting our 'punishment'."

"You're right." Sakura answered with a grin. "There's no way I could have planted all the traps on the spot."

"So how did you do it? A special area trap seal? Did you get Kakashi-sensei to help?"

"Nope." Sakura popped.

"Sakura-chaaaaaaaan" Naruto whined, "Are you going to tell us, or just tease us forever."

"I'm thinking."

_"See? Isn't it fun to screw with lesser minds?"_

_"_Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?" Naruto begged, while Sasuke tilted his head and pouted a little more than usual.

_'_I never should have doubted you, Ishi,' Sakura thought, before responding:"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, I came last night to trapped part of the training grounds. Then I just made you chase me into the traps, and herded with a few extra seals and attacks to keep you stumbling out of them."

"Because you knew we'd be here in the morning." Sasuke said, understanding.

"You'd be great at pranks, Sakura-chan." Naruto agreed.

"Yup, I picked the battlefield, and prepared appropriately, because even though you're both better than me in taijutus and ninjutstu, and have more chakra than me, I could easily compensate by thinking ahead."

"So... now what? Kakashi gave us the day off."

"Lunch as a team?" Sakura suggested.

"Hn", "Sure, Sakura-chan!" responded the boys.

"There's this new barbecue place near my house I've been meaning to go to."

* * *

_Meanwhile, with Kakashi at the Hokage's tower_

_"_Hatake Kakashi reporting in for Team 7, Hokage-sama" stated the habitually tardy jonin.

"Oh, Kakashi-kun, perfect, I have a mission for you and your team. Where are Sakura-chan, Sasuke-kun, and Naruto-kun?" ask the aged Hokage.

"Heh heh..." Kakashi answered, rubbing the back of his head, "About that... Team 7 won't be taking any missions today. The minions are taking a day off for bonding and morale purposes."

"Sakura-chan expressed her displeasure with Sasuke-kun and Naruto-kun almost breaking Rule #1, I take it?" Sarutobi asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes"

"Well, I still have an important mission for you."

"I'm not doing another seduction mission." Kakashi stated flatly.

"Of course not. This is a research and training mission for your team. You leave in a week."

"Research and Training?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I'm intrigued by the possibilities of some of Sakura-chan's seal-work. So in a week, your team will leave for the River country border, where you will spend a month practicing border protection and infiltration, testing seals, and training your genin. When you return, I expect a full report on their progress and the effectiveness and feasibility of any of your students creations. Furthermore, to ensure the impartiality of your report, I'll be sending another jonin with you. Do you have an questions?"

"Ano, Hokage-sama." Kakashi started, "I had intended to nominate my cute little genin for the chuunin exam."

"I had guessed." said the Hokage

"Ah" answered Kakashi, understanding the implication that the mission was intended to keep the team out of town for the exams. "Are there any 'additional' objectives for the mission?"

"Teach them well"

"Understood, Hokage-sama."

"Bring your team in tomorrow and we'll discuss your additional teammate and requisition allowance."

* * *

_The next day_

"Requisition allowance?" Sakura asked with disbelief.

"Yes, you'll be given access to an account of 50,000 Ryo, the account information is here," said the Hokage, handing a slip of paper to the pinkette, "Now listen, Sakura-chan, this money is for sealing supplies and development purposes only. Don't make me regret trusting you with it," a serious expression conveying the severity of the money.

"Excuse me, Hokage-sama," Sasuke interjected, "Why exactly are we going to be testing the seals? Wouldn't this normally be in the purview of the R&amp;D department?"

"Normally it would be. However, since the seals you are testing are the personal creations of Sakura-chan here, handing them off to R&amp;D would violate her rights as the creator. But, between Naruto's proclivity for clones, and your Sharingan and talents as a shinobi, I have the utmost confidence in your ability to test your teammates creations. Furthermore, this is a good chance for you three to work on developing your stealth and infiltration skills."

_"This is a novel moment, I don't think I've ever had intellectual property law work in my favor before."_

"Requisition allowance?" Sakura mumbled.

"Hey jiji, why do you need to send another ninja with us? We can totally handle this mission by ourselves!" Naruto demanded.

"Don't think of it as needing help for the mission, Naruto-kun, think of it as getting an extra teacher to help you learn what I hope you will from this mission."

"If you say so, jiji," Naruto grumbled, "So who's our 'extra teacher'?"

"Yes, I'd like to know who will be 'helping' me teach my genin too, Hokage-sama." Kakashi asked, shooting his boss a dirty look.

"Why of course, Kakashi-kun," the Hokage answered with a wide grin, "He should be here now," before pushing a button on his desk.

A door opened, admitting a familiar jonin specialist wearing sunglasses and a black bandana.

"WHAT? Our extra teacher is the closet pervert? Why are you punishing me? I've been good, no pranks in weeks" Naruto groused.

"Naruto, I know you and Ebisu-kun don't have a stellar history, but he **is** an excellent teacher, and working professionally with other ninja of the village regardless of personal feelings is something you must be able to do as a ninja of this village, Naruto-kun, especially if you want to be Hokage someday."

"I understand, jiji," Naruto answered abashedly, "Sorry, Ebisu-san."

"Just don't let it happen again, Uzumaki-san." Ebisu said, with a small smile. "I look forward to this mission with Team 7, my name is Ebisu, jonin specialist, tutor to Sarutobi Konohamaru, as well as several other ninja in the Kohona shinobi corps."

"Uchiha Sasuke, genin member of Team 7" Sasuke grunted, seeing that his sensei and Naruto apparently knew their new team member.

"Requisition Allowance?" Sakura mumbled.

Everyone stared at the young kunoichi, the members of team 7 subtly stepped away from Sakura in unison.

_"Some Nitric acid, maybe some acetylene, a source of phosphorous, a source of fluorine, we'll need tons of oil, a plastic cow, some copper wire, large copper plates, some de-ionized water, some bleach, and some ethanol. We are going to have so much fun now that we have a budget."_

"heh... heh..." Sakura started chuckling," hehehehehehahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Ebisu emulated the members of Team 7 and casually stepped away from the clearly crazy kunoichi.

* * *

**AN: Ah, establishing a new arc. Team 7 won't be in the chuunin exams, but I plan to write omake's about what would happen if they were (cause fanfic means I can have my cake and eat it too.) If you can guess what's going to happen, feel free to PM me or leave a review. **

**Furthermore, anyone who guesses what the purpose of any of the more esoteric items on Ishi's shopping list (read: other than acetylene, oil, and plastic cows) will get a shout-out in the next chapter. **

**See you next week, on the continuation of PIGS... IN... SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE**


	15. Chapter 15: Walk on Water, Swim on Land

**Disclaimer: Did Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura ever demonstrate the ability to use techniques other than the one or two they learned from their respective mentors and variants therein? If not, I don't own the Naruto franchise. If so, I still don't own the naruto franchise, but I apparently missed something.**

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 15: Walk on Water, Swim through Land.**

* * *

"So you never did answer my question, Naruto." Sakura said as she finished the last diacritic modifier on the seal she had been working on. "Either of them, actually."

Team 7 had adjourned from the Hokage's office, followed Sakura to a company that supplied construction crews in Konoha, helped her make various eldritch and arcane purchases, then followed her home for a team dinner. Afterwards, Sakura had begun explaining some of her ideas to the team, who had promptly joined in to brainstorm improvements or alternatives that would work more effectively or teammates individual styles better.

"What questions did you mean, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked.

"First, are you an actual Uzumaki? Or did you get given the name as an honorary title because of the kyuubi?"

Naruto frowned.

"I don't actually know, Sakura-chan. I never knew anything about my family, so they could be anything from random civilians to a daimyo and his secret lover. I can ask jiji, if it's a big deal."

"No need," Kakashi interjected. "Naruto is an actual Uzumaki."

_"In blood, at least, and he has the Uzumaki family heirloom."_

_'_Heirloom?'

_"It's big, orange, fuzzy, and has a temper, exactly what you'd expect of an Uzumaki family anything."_

'That "heirloom" wrecked half the village the last time anyone saw it.'

_"Exactly what you'd expect of an Uzumaki family anything."_

'Yeah, pretty much' Sakura thought with an internal sigh as she mentally went over her internal profile of Naruto.

_"_So I guess the jinchuuriki is always an Uzumaki." Sakura mused, "And can I see the seal?"

"I guess, "Naruto said sheepishly, before removing his jumpsuit's coat and the shirt he wore underneath it.

Sakura and Sasuke stared at Naruto expectantly, not seeing a seal on their teammate's bare chest. Naruto formed a tiger seal and began channeling chakra, causing a black spiral to fade into existence on his stomach.

Sakura leaned in close, ignoring the blush Naruto was developing. The seal was elegant and complicated. It had been compiled and interpreting it now with releasing the seal would either require the documentation of it's creator, previous knowledge of the seal, or directly interacting with the seal's chakra. It would take Sakura months of work refining a seal until compiling would leave this kind of simplistically hypnotic design. This was function blended with style and the perfect amount of showmanship to cross the line from 'tool' into 'art'.

The Fourth Hokage had made this seal in a few hours? It was practically drool-worthy.

_"Literally drool-worthy, apparently, now shut your mouth, Sakura, and to be fair, you can be sure that the Fourth Hokage cheated when he made this thing. **Holy crap**, I think it uses two separate syntaxes and blends the meta-seals at the interface of the various parts. Christ, that must have been fiddly. The Hell? Is that COBOL?"_

Sakura, like all almost-well-adjusted people, ignored the voice in her head. She didn't have the Fourth Hokage's notes, and she'd never seen or made a seal like this one, so that left only one option for learning more about it.

"Can I-" Sakura asked shyly, "-touch you? For Science?" as she wiped some saliva from the side of her mouth.

Naruto and Sasuke both turned a red bright enough to match Sasuke's favorite tomatoes.

"Yeeeeeeaaaah no." Kakashi interrupted, much to the relief of the male members of Team 7. "Sakura, no messing with seals that protect the village from imminent and immediate destruction until you're at least a specialist." He grabbed his excited female student before she could molest Naruto. "Especially not without a clear need and some basic idea of what you're doing."

Sakura sighed, "Fine Kakashi-sensei, but do you at least know if I could get my hands on the template for the seal, or maybe some of the Fourth Hokage's notes? You were his student, right?"

"Maybe after this mission, Sakura-chan, but no promises." Kakashi said. "Classified intel and all that."

"I never get anything nice," grumbled the pinkette.

"Don't be like that, minion number 3, I have something that may cheer you up." The enigmatic jonin said with a smile. "If we're going to be testing your seals and practicing border infiltration and defense, you'll need to learn some utility jutsu, starting tomorrow."

"YES!" shouted Naruto and Sakura, expressing their excitement with fist pumps, while Sasuke contented himself with a smile.

"Yup, new jutsu. You've all done so well as a team-"

"YEAH, we're the best genin team EVER!" Naruto interrupted.

Sasuke snorted.

"*cough*stairs*cough*" coughed Sakura, causing both male genin to twitch.

"-that it's time to step up your training." continued Kakashi, ignoring the interplay of his genin. "Expect a heavy chakra workout tomorrow; when you inevitably tire yourselves out, we can work on alpha testing Sakura's new seals."

* * *

_Later that night, in a private room at a karaoke bar._

"So, Kabuto, did you intentionally leak info about the Orochimaru's plans, or are Sound's infiltrators as bad as Kohona's internal security?" Ishi, wearing Sakura's sleeping body, asked the !genin in question, causing Kabuto to spit water and begin coughing and sputtering to remove fluid from his lungs.

"How did you even-" Kabuto began as he began breathing following Ishi's attempt to choke him with words.

"Silly Kabuto-chan" Ishi interrupted, "I know everything, you should know this by now."

"Don't call me chan, I'm older than you." Kabuto scowled.

"Older than this body maybe, but for all you know I could be an psuedo-immortal, reincarnating, time-looping, psychic gestalt that takes breaks from being the God-Emperor of mankind by possessing little girls and teasing double-reverse-flip-quadruple agents.

"Are you?" Kabuto asked expectantly, desperate for more information on his new...friend? blackmailer? karaoke partner?

"No" Ishi stated flatly.

"So how did you know?" Kabuto asked.

"Well the Hokage is suspicious, and I know Orochimaru's infiltrators can normally run circles around Konoha's security, with you being the ur-example. Danzo sucks at internal security just as badly. So if the administration is suspicious, then it's probably because someone let them be suspicious."

"Huh." Kabuto answered, "Well yes, I may or may not have placed some document drops less than perfectly. Let me say, it is a nightmare leaving information available where ANBU will find it. I was considering leaving the next one on T&amp;I's doorstep with a pretty bow on top. Konoha really can't do internal security for shit."

"Yeah, they don't really need it. Between the Kiri purges and civil war, Iwa's recovery from the last shinobi war, and Suna's economic troubles, the only major village that poses a threat is Kumo, and Kumo's infiltration is even worse than Konoha's security, or else they would have a Hyuuga or eight by now. Hell, the only solvent major villages with S-rank shinobi other than their respective Kage's are Konoha and Kumo." Ishi frowned, "Now that I think about it, it's rather troubling that there are more S-rank shinobi roaming as missing nin than there are associated with any 3 major villages."

Both ninja were silent for a moment as they considered the implications.

"We're fucked, aren't we." Kabuto said, more a statement than a question, "Even if the villages have a tenuous peace, with enough stability to prevent a full on war for the next few decades, there are too many monsters wandering around with the power to flatten most of a hidden village. As soon as two or three decide to just say 'Fuck it!' and cut loose that the continent will just go up in flames."

"Yup," Ishi answered, "Hell, if I hadn't dragged you hear for some booze and music, you'd probably have been one inside of 3 years."

"I glad you think so highly of my potential." Kabuto answered sarcastically, "But really, what the hell are we going to do? This invasion might be the spark the sets off armageddon."

"Nope," Ishi cut in, "Sound doesn't have the force to cut down Konoha, even with Sand's help, and the 3-way stand off between Kumo, Iwa, and Konoha will preserve peace enough to prevent World War 4 until Kiri and Suna recover."

"SO WHAT?" Kabuto demanded, "Even if Orochimaru isn't the monster who ends the world, it's just a matter of time until one of the S-ranked murder-hobos does. The hell are we going to do?"

"The same thing we do every night, Kabuto, sing until our ears bleed." Ishi answered with a grin.

"GRAAAAAAGH!" Kabuto managed to force out, his cynicism and Ishi's teasing de-elevating his normally pristine syntax to a strangled shout.

"Fine, Fine," Ishi said, holding his hands up defensively, "Ruin my fun. The simple answer is that time is on our side in this conflict: most of the people with the desire to prevent this are at genin level, _now. _The last shinobi war and the kyuubi attack stunted the development of the current adult generation, so most of the current S-rank ninja are either crazy -like Itachi, Kisame, Killer B, or Hidan- or past their prime, like Hiruzen, Oonoki, Jiraiya, or Tsunade. So the best bet to prevent a few maniacs from killing everyone _and their dog_ is in the newer generation. We need time for you, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and the other nascent legends to grow into your power. Hell, give it 4 years, and there'll be a half-dozen new S-rank shinobi who grew up with peace, untainted by the jingoism and paranoia caused by the wars. We just need to keep the world together for that long and we can start improving the status quo."

"So your plan is basically: Train like crazy and don't break anything." Kabuto said with a frown.

"I think I put it more eloquently, but yes, that's the gist of it."

"We're all going to die."

"But what a way to go." Ishi said with a smirk, before picking up a mic and starting to sing _Highway to Hell._

* * *

_The next morning at Training Ground 7_

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke were all excited to learn new jutsu, it was a monumental event and showed their teacher's opinion of their growth as ninjas. Kakashi had even shown up on time, cementing this as an important day for Team 7.

"What are you going to teach us, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto shouted, "Some awesome jutsu to make water dragons, like you did with Zabuza? How to make lightning strike twice? How to set stuff on fire with my mind? TellmeTellMeTELLME!"

"Calm down Naruto," Kakashi said, "Breathe."

All three genin stared and glared with a mixture of apprehension at the magic lesson that was sure to begin, and anger with the scarecrow's transparent delaying tactic.

"Ma, such scary faces." mused the jonin, "Well, a quick run through of my plans going forward. I have two jutsu that I expect all three of you to learn, and one specific jutsu that I think will suit you each individually. Your incentive to work hard is the jutsu themselves. Each of you will only work on one technique at a time, when you manage profficiency, you get the next one. The personal jutsu will be the last one you earn: if you do well, you could have them all down before we leave for the border, but slacking might prevent you from learning more than one jutsu before then end of this mission. Additionally, all five techniques that I will be passing out have low enough chakra requirements that any of the three of you could learn them. If you surprise me, I may let you share your specialty technique with your teammates. So if you slack, you get one technique, if you work hard, you get three, and if all three of you work hard and manage to teach each other successfully, you might get five new techniques."

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto all nodded fervently, trying to express that they would master these techniques in record time.

"We'll go over the hand-seals for the first jutsu and then you can start practicing. When the academy gets out, Ebisu will be joining us to get a feel for your capabilities; feel free to direct your questions to him. Now who's ready?"

"WE ARE!" all three genin shot back.

"Good, this first technique is incredibly useful and dangerous if done incorrectly, so focus."

Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke all held their breath. Sasuke activated his Sharingan, hoping for a demonstration.

"The first jutsu is..."

Naruto made several clones, which Sakura supplied with snare drums from hammerspace to allow for a drumroll.

"The Hiding-Like-A-Mole Jutsu!"

_"YES! SCORE!"_

Naruto face-planted.

Sakura started tearing up.

Sasuke sighed, he'd been hoping that there sensei would teach him something useful instead of just clowning around.

All three of them knew the jutsu, and had seen Kakashi use it during their bell test, it was neither flashy nor destructive, and therefore not what the three preteens had been hoping for.

Seeing his minion's lackluster reactions and crossing his arms, Kakashi grumbled to himself: "No respect, I tells ya. My cute little genin wound me so."

The children ignored their 'teacher', each starting to pout in disappointment.

"PAY ATTENTION!" barked Kakashi, prompting and immediate response from the children, "This jutsu directly affects the earth around you as you use it, making a mistake can get you entombed in rock, but creative application and mastery has as many uses as you can come up with. These are the hand-seals."

All three genin carefully memorized the three hand-seals their teacher slowly worked through, before sinking into the ground. They stared blankly at the earth, wondering if they should start practicing.

Suddenly, hands erupted from the earth, grabbing all three of them by the ankle and dragging them into the earth, leaving them all buried up to the neck, side by side, as three copies of Kakashi rose from the ground.

"WHAT THE HELL, KAKASHI-SENSEI?" shouted Naruto, while Sasuke started having flashbacks to their first day as genin.

"Kakashi-sensei, you're so mean," Sakura pouted.

"Now, if you'll notice, I've left you all an empty pocket around your hands, so get to it." said the center Kakashi as each of the three clones sat down in front of one of the disembodied heads of his students before pulling out a familiar book.

Sasuke closed his eyes and focused for several seconds, having copied and memorized the jutsu as their teach performed it, before slowly, and shakily sinking from view for several seconds before rising to the surface. "Done, Kakashi-sensei, next jutsu please." Earning a scowl from Naruto and a smile from Sakura.

"Hmmmmmmmmm," Sasuke's clone of Kakashi said, "Nope"

"What?" Sasuke growled dangerously.

"I told you, you get the next technique when you manage this one proficiently. Being able to use the technique in a safe environment is just the beginning. Now get to work, I expect you to be intimately familiar with the limitations and aplications of the technique before you're done.

Sasuke took a breath, looking as though he would protest, until his Kakashi clone looked up from his book and raising his eyebrow, daring the dark-haired boy to continue.

"Fine" Sasuke managed to growl, before flipping through the hand-seals dryly several times before using the jutsu again and sinking into the ground.

The central Kakashi clone then noticed the looks his two other genin were giving him.

"What are you staring at?" He asked, "Get to work, before I go looking for some spiders to motivate you."

All the attitude drained from Sakura and Naruto's faces, giving way to panic as they began desperately trying to free themselves from the earth before Kakashi decided to get 'creative'.

In 30 seconds, Naruto sank from his neck to his eyes, prompting his Kakashi to pull out a stick and dig a small hole, exposing Naruto's submerged nose, before going back to his book.

* * *

**AN: Well, chapter 15, not a lot of plot, but we're getting there, next week will be Team 7 leaving Konoha and starting border patrol.**

**On my profile, I've posted several ideas for stories, feel free to send questions or suggestions. I know Sticks and Stones isn't anywhere close to done, but when it approaches the end, I intend to post a poll for which story to write next.**

**Till next week.**


	16. Chapter 16: Training Montage

**Disclaimer: I fon't own the Naruto franchise, if I did, I wouldn't be writing on this site, I'd be making merch and movies and living off the royalties.**

* * *

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 16: Training Montage**

Getting the hang of floating through dirt took Sakura all of 20 minutes. While Naruto managed the basics of the jutsu in about an hour, seeing Sakura and Sasuke manage easily and occaisionally provide tips.

The jutsu, it turned out, made a layer of earth, around the user, act like a colloid, allowing for them to manipulate small amounts of earth as though it were fluid. After realizing that, the three genin began a game of Marruko Poro, taking to the trees was equivalent to 'fish out of water'. Since navigation relied on pulsing chakra in a form of sonar (As Sakura and Sasuke did) or expanding their envelop as far as possible to increase tactile feedback of chakra (as Naruto did). All players were effectively blinded to a limited degree in the large clearing they were practicing their 'swimming' (Though calling it swimming would be innacurate, as the bubble of earth chakra created movement rather than any physical motion on the users part).

Sakura and Naruto would forever deny using the game as a an excuse to glomp Sasuke and Sakura while underground, respectively.

Eventually, however, the game devolved into tag, with the three genin leaping from the the earth to escape in the trees before diving back into the cold, forgiving ground.

Through the games, which they spent most of the day on, only taking a break for lunch with bentos Sakura conjured from thin air, they learned some interesting things about the jutsu. For example, it could be used to make dirt and dust run off their hands like water, when they tried washing up for lunch.

Additionally, trying the jutsu near a body water would suck liquid water into the envelope surrounding them, either forcing them out of the earth into open water, or drenching them in a pocket of mud.

More importantly, the chakra bubble that manipulated earth could be shaped or expanded to a limited degree, allowing for objects or enemies to be affected by the jutsu, which was how Kakashi had buried the three genin and how he had made small air pockets around their hands to allow them to practice the jutsu.

* * *

"Well isn't this interesting?" Kakashi mused to himself.

Sakura had taken a curved blade, and was swimming just below the surface of the earth while hold the blade above the ground, in a crude facsimile of a shark, and had begun circling Naruto, who had been enjoying the sleepiness that followed lunch, before jolting to awareness at the thought of a land-shark made of metal. When he realized that his beloved female teammate had pranked him, he pulled out a kunai, and sank into the earth, and began following his fellow 'shark'. The two approached Kakashi, who was about to join in on their fun, when he felt a small hand grip his ankle.

'That clever little bastard' Kakashi thought to himself as he allowed himself to be pulled into the earth up to his neck.

Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura all rose from the earth, grinning at their apparently incapacitated sensei.

"That's for the bell test" Sasuke said smugly.

Kakashi laughed for several seconds before calming down and eye-smiling at his students, "Oh Sasuke; poor, sweet, innocent little Sasuke-chan. You've opened a box that can't be closed: welcome to the world of jutsu-enhaced petty revenge pranks."

The color slowly drained from the three genin's faces as the ramifications of their actions slowly dawned on them.

"Basically," Kakashi said, "Run."

Sasuke quickly ran through the handseals to his new jutsu, before sinking into the earth.

Naruto did much the same, but he did a standing half-front-flip and dove into the earth head first.

Sakura ran up a nearby tree while running through handsigns, before jumping back off the trunk, doing a double backfull and swandiving into the earth.

Kakashi counted to five before sinking into the earth and giving chase.

The resulting game of tag last for several hours and ended with all three genin, bound, gagged, exhausted, and hanging upside down from tree-branches

* * *

_"See? Isn't this jutsu great?"_

_'_Again, Ishi, you were right, this was fun, and I can think of tons of ways to use this.'

_"So will you doubt me or your sensei again?"_

'Not until one of you does something seemingly nonsensical again.'

_"So basically until everyone's finished resting up from this break."_

'And Naruto, Sasuke and I untie ourselves.'

Suddenly a high pitched little voice shouted out, "BOSS! What happened to you?"

A short, brunette kid wearing goggles and a long scarf ran into the training grounds, followed by Ebisu.

The child began jumping up and down frantically under where Naruto was tied up and hanging, shouting out "Don't worry, Boss! I'll get you down!"

Ebisu approached Kakashi, who was sitting and reading his book before asking, "I thought you were training them in ninjutsu. Did they annoy you enough to get you to change the plan?"

"Well, Ebisu-san," Kakashi answered with a smiling eye, "They need to be able to use their jutsu under pressure in a wide variety of situations, they're lucky I didn't have time to find any hot coals."

Ebisu smiled nervously in response.

While this exchange was going on, the three genin slipped their bindings and removed their gags. Sakura gracefully landed on the ground while Naruto and Sasuke pulled themselves up to the branches they had been hanging from before walking down the trunk to join their third teammate on the ground.

"Hi, Konohamaru," Naruto said, "What's with the goggles?"

"Aren't they great?" the now named Konohamaru answered, "They're just like the goggles that you wore when you were in the academy."

"Hold up," Sakura interjected, "Naruto, since when have you had a minion? How did you get a minion? Sasuke-kun and I want minions, don't we Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn," Sasuke answered noncommittally.

_"If you want a minion, Sakura-"_

'I'm not seducing Hinata, Ishi, so stop suggesting it.'

"Oh right," Naruto said, "You haven't met yet, Sakura-chan, Sasuke, this is Konohamaru, he's the Old Man's grandson. Konohamaru, these are my teammates, Sakura-chan and Sasuke."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Kimimaru-chan." Sakura said, holding out her hand to Konohamaru.

"It's Konohamaru," Naruto corrected his teammate.

"Got it, sorry Kisuke-chan, it won't happen again." Sakura said.

"It's Konohamaru!" Konohamaru said through gritted teeth.

"Calm down Kenta-chan," Sasuke said, joining in on the teasing, "Sakura won't do it again. Sakura, stop teasing little Keitaro-chan."

"GRAH!" Konohamaru shouted inarticulately before charging at Sasuke, flailing angrily at him.

Sasuke dodged the young boys blows easily, swaying out of the way before any could land, and began considering how to respond even as Konohamaru attempted to rain punches on him.

"Don't hurt Kazuya-chan, Sasuke-kun," Sakura called out to him, "He's just a little kid."

"Fine, fine" Sasuke called back, nonchalantly sidestepping charging tackle.

He turned back to Konohamaru and began flipping through handseals. When Konohamaru charged him again, Sasuke sidestepped again, placing his left foot directly under the step of Konohamaru's right. Konohamaru was surprised to step on Sasuke's foot, and even more suprised when both Sasuke's and his leg sank into the earth, causing him to struggle for balance for several seconds while Sasuke moved his leg and withdrew it from the ground, leaving Konohamaru's right leg buried up to mid-shin, effectively trapping him.

Konohamaru tried to punch Sasuke again, only to realize that his leg was truly and thoroughly stuck in the ground.

"You know, Naruto" Sakura said, watching the spectacle, "You really need to train your minions better. He lost his cool really easily and just started charging in blindly."

"Well he **is** just an academy student," Naruto answered

Their conversation was interrupted by Konohamaru shouting out, "THAT'S IT, YOU ASKED FOR IT!" before making a single handseal and shouting out, "SEXY TECHNIQUE!"

Konohamaru was then replaced by an attractive woman.

An attractive **naked** woman.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke all blushed.

"You taught him that, didn't you Naruto," Sakura asked distractedly.

"Yes, yes I did," Naruto answered carefully, cringing.

Sakura facepalmed, "Of course you did."

Realizing that his technique was neither freeing his leg nor defeating his opponent, Konohamaru ended the transformation.

"Well..." Sasuke said,"...this just got awkward," before walking back over to his two teammates.

"So... Fuuinjutsu?" Sakura asked.

"Fuuinjutsu." Naruto and Sasuke affirmed.

Ok, so for the the tags, they all come with various triggers. Here's what the simple time fuse looks like, you adjust the delay like this..." Sakura said, producing various tags and explaining and demonstrating their use to her teammates. If they would be testing them on their mission, all of them needed at least an empirical understanding of Sakura's basic creations.

Kakashi joined them and watched with interest, making suggestions and pointing out a few potential improvements in the tags while Ebisu freed Konohamaru, who joined them.

The day ended when Sakura began demonstrating her Chakra Draining tags and Chakra storage tags, using the other members of Team 7 and Ebisu as guinea pigs, leaving them all too tired to continue, and providing Sakura with enough chakra to mass produce the more successful tags, as well as increasing the size of Sakura's stored personal chakra pool. She couldn't use other people chakra for techniques and internal chakra usage, yet, but storing her chakra for later was a simple, if limiting, workaround.

* * *

_The next morning (Tuesday)_

"Goooooooooooooooooood Morning, my cute little genin. " Kakashi greeted his students, "Today we'll start with physical conditioning and Taijutsu katas, after lunch we'll work on internalizing the hand-seals of your new jutsu. If you manage to cut them down to one hand-seal, we'll move on to the next jutsu, when Ebisu gets here we'll go back to practical fuunijutsu, like yesterday.

The prospect of being drained of chakra _again_ drew a groan from Sasuke and Naruto.

"Let's do it!" Sakura cheered.

"Alright, we'll start with 5 laps of the training ground." Kakashi answered, immediately killing Sakura's good cheer.

* * *

_The next afternoon (Wednesday)_

"I did it, Kakashi-sensei" Sakura wheezed, "One hand-seal"

"Prove it" Kakashi answered.

Sakura formed a snake seal and slowly sank into the ground up to her neck, then started circling her teacher, forming a gruesome image of a disembodied and mobile head.

"How'd you do that, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, while Sasuke turned expectantly.

"You need to feel the chakra flow and change when you do the jutsu, then make it do the same thing without the hand seals." Sakura's head answered, "So just do the jutsu slowly a few times, and then make the chakra flow habitual."

Nodding, Sasuke and Naruto got back to working, starting and stopping the jutsu to get a feel for the chakra flow.

"Well, Sakura-chan, I honestly didn't expect you to get it so soon. Good job." Kakashi said, "Take a break, work on your fuuinjutsu, and tomorrow we'll go over the next technique: The Body Flicker."

* * *

_Thursday morning_

Naruto was sleeping under a tree with one leg still buried when Sakura arrived at the training ground.

_"Probably didn't even go home either."_

'That's our Naruto, dedicated to a fault.' Sakura thought, 'How should we take advantage of this?'

_"Water balloons?"_

'Water balloons.'

Several seconds later a sputtering Naruto was rudely awoken.

"I'm assuming you didn't go home last night, Naruto, so dig up you leg." Sakura said as she snapped her fingers to summon a towel, "I have some ration bars you can have for breakfast, once you dry off."

"Morning Sakura-chan," Naruto grumbled with a yawn, before perking up, "OH! Sakura-chan! Watch this!" Naruto formed a snake seal, focused for a few seconds, before pulling his leg from the ground.

"Wow! Good job Naruto." Sakura said as she handed Naruto a towel and ration bar.

"Yeah, Sasuke got it a few hours after sunset sunset, and I got it a while later before falling asleep." Naruto answered with a smile.

Sasuke then walked up, bags visible under his eyes, eating a tomato.

"That's great," Sakura said, "That means we can all learn the Body Flicker together."

"Oh Really?" asked Kakashi, having appeared from nowhere, jolting his surprised genin. "Sasuke, Naruto, why don't you demonstrate."

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, grinned, and each formed a snake symbol before sinking into the ground, then rising back up.

"My cute little genin grow up so fast," Kakashi said, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye, before continuing:

"The second jutsu is the Body Flicker: a high speed movement technique that uses smoke, leaves, or something else to distract from your initial movements. It is NOT, as many civilians believe, a teleportation technique. To utilize it properly, you need an intimate understanding of your current location, your target, and their relative positions. This is an important D-rank jutsu, because internalizing the chakra spike used to boost your movement speed is the basis of using chakra to enhance your speed and strength, which is a technique all upper level ninja master. You pour chakra into your muscles, while envisioning the movement you need, then use a swirl of leaves or smoke as a slight distraction, before 'riding' your chakra to your destination. This technique is especially useful against low level ninja and mercenaries who don't use chakra. However, upper level ninja can follow your movements through your chakra, so keep your opponent in mind if you try to use this in battle. Sasuke, don't roll your eyes," Kakashi reprimanded the unimpressed avenger, "even if this jutsu isn't particularly useful in high level battles, the tangential benefits of mastering it are immense. And the sooner you master it, the sooner you'll master chakra enhancement. These are the handsigns."

The Body Flicker actually turned out to be simultaneously easier and more difficult for the genin to learn.

Hopping from one spot to another was easy to get down, but being able to jump to an arbitrary spot was more difficult, especially in any kind of decent time. Speed, obsviously, being the objective of the jutsu, so focusing for 10-15 seconds before using it would render the jutsu utterly useless in a practical setting.

But by the time Ebisu and Konohamaru showed up, Team 7 had enough practice with flickering that Konohamaru would be an utterly trivial opponent in any future games of tag.

* * *

_Team Dinner at Ichiruka's, the night before the R D mission._

"Hey, Teuchi, get me a big bowl of miso ramen, we've got an awesome mission and we leave tomorrow, so I've got to stock up on ramen now." Naruto said as Team 7 entered the stand.

"I'll have a beef ramen," Sakura said.

"Shrimp" said Sasuke.

"Beef as well," Kakashi said, as all four ninja sat down.

"Another mission out of town already? You just got back from your last one." said the man behind the counter as he filled a bowl and passed it to he best customer, before doing the same for the other members of Team 7.

"We're the best team ever, Teuchi, of course we get tons of missions." said Naruto, following it with, "Itadakismasu"

"I'm sure you are." said Teuchi before addressing Kakashi "So may I ask how long you'll be keeping my best customer out of town, Hatake-san?"

"While I can't tell you what our mission is or where we're going, I can say we should be gone for about a month." Kakashi said, as he somehow managed to eat without taking of his mask.

"A month, eh?" Teuchi said, "I guess you won't be participating in the-" Kakashi began frantically signalling to try to get the ramen vendor to stop talking-"chuunin exams"

Sasuke's chopsticks snapped.

"Chuunin exams?" Naruto asked, "Kakashi-sensei, what's a chuunin exam?"

"The chuunin exams are a set of test held every 6 months." The teacher said with a sigh, "Genin take the test to see if they have the skill, strength, experience, and intelligence to be chuunin. If you do well enough in the exam, you get promoted. They're being hosted by Konoha this time, so genin from all over the elemental nations will be coming, competing, and dying-literally- to try to get a promotion."

"So why aren't we in them?" Sasuke demanded, "Do you think we're not ready?"

"You're not competing in them," Kakashi said, fixing Sasuke with a glare, "because we have a mission from the Hokage that has been deemed more important to the village than a rookie team competing in the chuunin exam."

"Can't someone else do the mission?" Sasuke asked, "I'm good enough to beat any genin in those exams."

"Yeah, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto agreed, "we're the best team ever, why can't we show everyone? If I kick ass in the chuunin exam, I'll be one step closer to being Hokage."

"Tired of you old sensei already? Are you trying to get promoted so you can leave me all alone?" Kakashi said before placating his upset genin, "It's not a criticism of your skills, all three of you are skilled enough to not be at risk of dying in the exams, and your mentality has been improving, so you might even pull a promotion out of it, but you've only been genin for a few months, and we do have a mission that prevents us from being here for the exam. In the long run, you'll get less out of the exam then you would would get from more field experience."

Sasuke looked like he was going to keep arguing before Sakura cut in, "Sasuke-kun, it's fine, it's not like the title of chuunin makes you any stronger by itself, at least this way we'll be getting some experience and training over the next month on our important mission."

"I will say that turning down a mission the Hokage personally requested us for in hopes of earning a promotion isn't exactly the best way of demonstrating the maturity we expect of chuunin." agreed the cycloptian jonin.

"I'm plenty mature." Sasuke argued.

Sakura and Naruto snorted, drawing a raised eyebrow from Sasuke.

"Oh, you're serious." Sakura said, before laughing some more and continuing, "Sasuke-kun, we're 12 years old, and chuunin are expected to lead missions. Getting more training before curb-stomping some genin in a test isn't a bad thing."

Sasuke and Naruto both accepted that and returned to eating.

As he finished his bowl, Sasuke grumble just loud enough for his teach and teammates to hear, "This training better be worth it."

"Sasuke-chan, have I given you reason to doubt me?" Kakashi said, holding a hand over his heart, as though he'd been wounded by his student's words.

"Yes" said Sasuke flatly.

"Yup" agreed Naruto

"Absolutely, Kakashi-sensei" Sakura finished.

"My minions, you wound me so." Kakashi said, a fake tear appearing in his eye.

* * *

**Next Week, Team 7 goes on a road trip, expect travel songs and hitch-hikers.**

**AN: This story has been recieved far more positively than I thought it would, and I'd like to thank you all for your support and review: I treasure each and every one of them.**

**That said, in the interest of continuing entertaining you with stories, I'd love some PM's with comments on the story ideas listed on my profile.**

**Additionally, I have an internet cookie for anyone who manages to predict how this arc is going to end.**

**Tune in next week for the next update.**


	17. Chapter 17: Face-wall

**I don't own Naruto, and Kishimoto couldn't be bothered to have more than one ninja fight resemble an actual ninja fight.**

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 17: Face-wall**

* * *

That Saturday, three genin appeared at Konoha's western gate in swirls of leaves. Two wore backpacks, while the third seemed to be as empty-handed as she usually was.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto all nodded to each other, and waited a token five minutes to see if Kakashi would be continuing his streak of punctuality, only to be surprised at the arrival of a fourth ninja.

"SECRET PERV!" Naruto shouted, pointing his finger accusingly at the new arrival, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh right," Sakura said nonchalantly as she slapped the back of Naruto's head, "You're joining us on this mission, even if I don't know why."

"Owwwwww, Sakura-chan," Naruto grumbled as he rubbed his head, "Whadya do that for?"

"You needlessly insulted Ebisu-san," Sakura answered, "And for the duration of the mission, he's an adjutant member of Team 7, so you should treat him with respect. What he does in his own time is nobodies business but those involved in any perversions he may or may not have."

"Needlessly?" Sasuke said curiously.

"I know what I said," Sakura answered, as Ebisu's face continued to fall from the genins' banter.

"Right," Ebisu sighed, "To answer your question, Sakura-san, I'm here primarily as an objective source and judge of your work, as your teacher and teammates are _necessarily_ biased, and additionally as a medic in the event of an accidental injury."

"You're a med-nin?" Sasuke asked. It was an impressive specialization, for a non-Uchiha.

"So what if he is?" Naruto grumbled, not quite over his original dislike for the older nin.

_"You don't fuck with the white mage."_

'I know that, Ishi, tell him, not me.'

_"Sure, I'll just use my totally existent vocal cords to speak such that I interact with the world outside your mind, that's totally a thing I can do."_

_'O_h shut up, you stupid psychosis.'

_"Sakuraaaaaaaaaaaaa, why don't you loooooooove meeeeeeeeeeeeeee?"_

Sakura was cut out of her mental repartee by Ebisu's answer, "I'm not a medic; I'm a tutor, but I've coached several genin through the beginning of medic training, and helped several chuunin medics round out their skills, so I know enough to handle trauma injuries and burns."

"Which is all we're likely to get in the field," Sakura said, understanding, "Because I'm not testing poisons on this mission, and none of us have any any diseases or congenital defects."

"Are you sure?" Sasuke and Naruto asked in unison, looking at each other pointedly, while Ebisu paled as Sakura said 'poison'.

"Didn't you bring anything, Sakura-san" Ebisu asked, trying to distract the genin from whatever murderous thoughts they were having.

As one, the three genin turned and looked at him as though he were an idiot. Sakura then snapped her fingers, conjuring a kitchen sink from seemingly nowhere, before raising her eyebrow, then making it vanish back into whatever handy haversack it came from.

"Oh right," Ebisu said, feeling foolish, removing and cleaning his glasses "Fuuinjutsu. We're testing the potency and flexibility of your fuuinjutsu."

_"See? Wasn't the worth buying and packing a kitchen sink, then practicing raising only one eyebrow for hours until you could actually do it?"_

'I know it shouldn't be, but it totally was, just for that.'

The four ninja stood in awkward silence for several seconds before Sasuke asked, "Jutsu practice?"

"Jutsu practice," agreed Sakura and Naruto, forming the tiger seal

Ebisu calmed down, and decided to do what he did best: help student nin polish their skills.

* * *

"No, no, no," Ebisu said, "You've got the mechanics of the jutsu down, but don't seem to get the purpose. It's not just about high speed movement, it's about _hiding_ high speed movement. You need to wait for the jutsu to cover you before you start moving, or you'll give away the general direction and distance to your opponent."

"Thank you, Ebisu-sensei." Sakura said, before continuing practicing the Body Flicker.

"Naruto," Ebisu called out, "Stop trying to force the jutsu, let your chakra _flow_ into it: you're pushing when you should be guiding, you'll never internalize the jutsu if you don't let it do what it's trying to do."

"Thank you, Ebisu-sensei" Naruto said, his mood and opinion of Ebisu much improved by several hours of training.

"Sasuke, you're holding the chakra too rigid, focusing to much on visualization." Ebisu said to the genin in question, "Relax, or you'll never improve your precision, and be more aware of your blind spots, or you'll have problems moving through them."

"Thank you, Ebisu-sensei" said Sasuke, his mood drastically improved by tangible progress in the jutsu.

"This jutsu isn't just important for it's own sake, the more you have to think about using it, the more trouble you'll have reinforcing your strength and speed in the future."

The practice was interrupted by a cloud of smoke.

"Gooooooooooooooooood morning, my cute little genin."

*cough*cough*

"-And Ebisu." Kakashi said, "I'm sorry I'm late, but my eternal rival challenged me to a contest of Hide and Seek, it took him hours to find me, and he's hiding now. I think he'll probably win."

The three genin snorted, while Ebisu asked, "How is Gai-san today?"

"The same he is every day," Kakashi answered, "Fired up and raring to go, I made the mistake of dropping a hat while helping a little old lady cross the street, and he decided that it meant it was time for a challenge."

"Wait, what?" Sakura said.

_"That way lies madness, Sakura, don't let him suck you in."_

"So did they give you any problems, Ebisu-san?"

"Not a bit, you have good students, Kakashi-san"

"I do, don't it?" Kakashi mused, "After this trip, I'll work on house breaking them."

"Kakashi-seeeeeeeeenseeeeiiiiiiiiii," moaned the three children.

"Have they made any progress on the body flicker?" Kakashi asked Ebisu.

"Plenty," answered Ebisu, "It won't be long before they have it at an acceptable level."

"Good to hear," Kakashi said, "Fortunately, the Body Flicker can be practiced while we walk. Now lets move, you're burning daylight."

* * *

_"Several hours later."_

_'_I know, why would you say something like that?'

_"So the audience knows that time has passed since we left Konoha, because nothing interesting has happened in that time, and I can't make a montage. It was either that or spend that time describing the more arid, mountainous landscape to the west of Konoha and contrast it with the moist coastal region to the east that you visited on your last mission."_

_'_Ishi, you're a little insane.'

_"Says the girl to the voice in her head."_

_'_Dammit'

_"Point to me."_

* * *

By mid-morning of the second day of travel, all three genin had mastered the Body Flicker and internalized the hand signs. Fortunately, they managed to master this before the the sweltering heat of afternoon. However, lacking a goal and dealing with the heat and sun, the three genin quickly became miserable. Their condition was exacerbated by the eclectic path their Sensei led, as the only one who knew their destination.

They walked in circles, up and down cliffs, straying from paths seemingly at random. At one point, they hopped on a log and floated down a river for several hours, only to continue walking on a game trail they had already walked once. Whenever the genin asked, Kakashi or Ebisu assured them that they knew where they were and where they were going.

It all reached a boil in a rather large valley. The only foliage was sparse thickets and bushes. There was no shade, the air was hot and heavy, and the land stretched out in a psuedo-plain between several mountains that indicated the ninjas' approach to the continental divide. Everyone was hot and bored; the genin were legitimately considering mutiny against their lackadaisical sensei.

"I can't take this anymore. This is SO. DAMN. BORING!"

Surprisingly, Sasuke was the first one to crack.

Sakura and Naruto looked at Kakashi expectantly, hoping for a diversion from the hike, even if it was just a teammate being lectured.

Kakashi sighed, stopped, and turned back towards his errant student, before spinning counterclockwise, his right hand suddenly coating in lightning, and reaching up to deflect a blade in a shower of sparks. Continuing his spin, the cyclops backhanded his assailant with enough force to make him stumble backwards and fall into a back flip, landing in a defensive stance in the middle of the road, 10 yards from the party of Konoha nin. He had tanned skin, a red vest and baggy, black pants. His head was shaved, and he held a small billhook in his right hand, which occasionally sparked from the tip of the blade. Around his bicep, there was a red-banded hitai-ate, bearing stylistic clouds with a slash scoured into the metal.

The three genin stared, while Ebisu muttered a name to himself, "Bari Kinoshita"

"Well, Sasuke," Kakashi said with far to much nonchalance for someone who had pimp-slapped an assassin 10 yards, uphill, " I have good news, and bad news. The good news is, the gods have answered your prayers and decided to relieve you from boredom. The bad news is that we are, once again, being attacked by missing nin during a standard C-rank mission. Care to enlighten us, Ebisu?"

"Bari Kinoshita," Ebisu answered with a grimace, "Serial killer, kin-slayer, torturer, and cannibal. He started with civilians in small, mountain villages and ended with his sister and cousins. There deaths were...neither quick nor clean. The cuts were cauterized, apparently with lightning jutsu, judging from his weapon, and vary rarely were the bodies recognizable. He's a B-rank missing nin from Kumo, a jounin specialist in short ranged taijutsu, kenjutsu, and ninjutsu. His bounty is 1 million ryo, dead. "

Naruto looked shocked, Sakura was turning green and staring into open space, while Sasuke looked simply murderous.

"Oh, right" Kakashi said, trying to prevent morale from dropping, "That guy. The billhook is new, but I remember hearing about him during the war."

"And of course I recognize you," Bari called out, "Sharingan Kakashi, the tree hugger who bastardized the third Raikage's Hell Stab technique."

"Before we get to the curbstomping, " Kakashi said, "If you don't mind my asking, what brought you here? You've been following us all day."

"Your minions were letting off lots of chakra, and you made a lot of noise." Bari answered with a predatory grin, "Ninja are always the tastiest. But how did you know I was following you?"

"Well," Kakashi answered, "If I had to guess, I'd say that that vest of yours was originally white, judging from the stench."

Kakashi then flipped through several handseals, before stomping his right foot onto the ground and calling out: "Moving Earth Core", sinking a circle of earth 30 meters across to down into the ground, forming a pit about 5 meters deep, a pit that contained all six ninja currently present.

"You moron!" Bari shouted at Kakashi, "You've just trapped your pretty little selves in this pit with me."

Kakashi snorted, then said: "Yeeeeaaaaah no. Judging from you 'surprise' attack, you don't have any hope of matching me in anything resembling a fight, and Ebisu could handle you now that you've wasted the element of surprise. You could beat one of my genin in a fair fight, but the three of them together could handle you." Kakashi looked thoughtful, "Probably, anyway. You're outnumbered, outclassed, and you know it. I can see you shaking from here."

"Actually," Sakura interjected dazedly,"Shaking is characteristic of the initial staqes of kuru, commonly observed in cannibals."

_"It could also be a dopamine disorder, from some disease or tumor also causing psychopathy."_

Sakura seemed to visibly calm as she distracted herself from the anathema that faced her team, falling into a clinical mindset.

"Huh," Kakashi answered, "My point still stands, you can't win, Bari, so I'm going to let my genin handle this."

"**What!?**" Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura cried is shock.

"Well, you were complaining about missing the chuunin exams, consider this a makeup exam. You get to handle this anyway you please."

Sakura glared at Sasuke, who ignored the hate directed at him.

"Can we just talk this out?" Naruto asked hesitantly, as much to the enemy as to his sensei.

"Naruto-" Sasuke hissed, "-if you try to pull the same redemption bullshit you did with Zabuza on this **bastard**, I will never forgive you." His statement accentuated by pulling out a kunai, his eyes swirling in rage at the kinslayer his sensei designated as an opponent for him.

"Sasuke, Naruto, calm down." Sakura interjected, "We can handle this."

"If you couldn't," Kakashi agreed with an eye-smile, "I wouldn't tell you to. Ebisu and I will be waiting outside of the gladiator pit, you will be graded on style and technique, so do your best."

Nodding in agreement with the senior ninja, even with uncertainty visible on his face, Ebisu turned and walked up the side of the pit, followed by Kakashi. Once they had left the pit, the upper rim suddenly erupted into a patchwork of fractal spikes, to keep anyone from escaping the 'test'.

"Well," Bari said, "If you're going to offer me an appetizer before the main course, who am I to argue. I guess I'm having tree-hugger salad for dinner."

"Oh shut up, airhead." Sakura said, pulling her hands into a hand seal before using the Disguise jutsu to mimic her orange teammate, "Naruto, we'll tie him up, Sasuke, keep an eye out for an opening to end this."

"Got it." Sasuke said, as he removed his backpack and tossed it to the second Naruto, his action mirrored by the original Naruto.

As their packs were sequestered in Sakura's inventory, Naruto's face hardened his hands formed a seal, "SHADOW-"

"-CLONE JUTSU," his doppelganger joined in, and suddenly the pit was filled with short orange ninja, each of which pulled a kunai from the pouch at his side.

At some silent signal, two thirds of the clones charged at Bari. The first clone was met with the billhook's point to his head in an overheaded chop, which turned into a sideways slash, bisecting the next clone. The end of the slash caught the collar of one of the clones, which Bari then lifted from the ground and smashed into the path of another clone, causing them both to dissolve into smoke. The fifth clone to reach him, however, passed right through the slash intended to slice him down the middle, slashing with an incorporeal kunai at Bari's eye, which he reflexively guarded, despite already being overextended and off balance from the empty slash through the normal clone.

Bari's mistake was utilized by the nearest Naruto shadow clones, each taking a stab at wounding Bari's extended right arm, impaling him with kunai and ripping the knives out of his flesh as messily as possible.

Suddenly, there was a small flash, and all clones within five feet of Bari were shocked into nonexistence, who used the space to catch his breath.

"You Absolute BRATS!" Bari shouted at the sea of orange before him, "I was going to be nice, but then you had to go and fuck up my arm. You were going to die, but now I'll make you suffer."

"I don't think so," said a Naruto, gesturing to Bari's right arm, currently a mangled collection of stab wounds and avulsions.

Bari smirked and raised his left arm to his right shoulder, and slowly swept his hand down his arm. A sizzling sound and the smell of burnt flesh assaulted team 7. When Bari was finished, the various clones could see that the missing nin had cauterized his wounds.

"That's going to scar like a motherfucker," one of the Naruto's called out, "And I doubt you'll be as fast with your hook now."

Bari threw his hook through the speakers head, which flew through the offending clone and embedded itself in the earth wall behind him.

"Fast enough for you?" Bari scowled at the cloud of smoke.

"Well it worked once!" shouted a Naruto as he slapped the Naruto next to him on the back, "So lets do it again!"

The crowd of Narutos charged Bari again, kunai in hand. Each clone was met with a quick efficient jab, each strike landed without fail in a vital area, and the crackle of electricity could be heard as each clone dispersed. Bari was more careful, protecting his right side, and being careful not to overextend. After several normal clones tried the same trick that had earned him several stab wounds before, he began to ignore all the illusion clones on principle, seemingly being able to pick them out of the crowd of shadow clones. New clones appeared to replace the fallen, until one of the clones caught a finger-stab to the throat, vanishing and leaving a paper tag floating where he had disappeared.

Bari leapt back, and keeping his eyes on the tag as it drifted to the ground and he attempted to guess how large an explosion the tag would give off.

_FLASH*_**BANG!**

The mission nin spewed profanity as he tried to rub the starts from his eyes and ignore the ringing in his ears. The swearing increased in volume and creativity as the Naruto clones, who had expected the flash-bang, rained kunai and shuriken on the temporarily crippled psychopath.

"That. Is. **IT**!" Bari snarled, pulling his hands together in various hand signs, "**ELECTROMAGNETIC MURDER!**"

He swept his arms out around the pit, and he could faintly hear the sounds of screams over the ringing in his ears.

"I normally hate my meat Well-Done, but you little niblets earned it."

After the jutsu ended, the smoke cleared, and Bari's vision cleared, he was happy to see three genin lying on the ground several meters apart from each other, each singed, and twitching from his powerful lightning technique. He was bleeding from a dozen small wounds, his right arm was a wreck, and his billhook was wedged in a wall up to the hilt. He decided to savor the genin's fear, a recompense for the pain they'd caused him, as he stalked up to the orange genin, the one who made the clones that had wounded him. He grabbed Naruto by the throat, and lifted him from the ground, slamming him against the wall of the pit, before saying, "Never has a meal given me this kind of trouble, and you're all just tree-huggers. Fuck, you'd better taste good. Let's have a taste to see if this was worth it." The cannibal reached with his right hand into a pouch around his waist, and pulled out a rusty spoon, relishing the abject horror in the genin's eyes as he did so, 'I think an eye will do. They go bad so fast once a meal stops twitching."

He took the spoon, and leaned forward till he was inches away from Naruto's face, and shakily raised his utensil, to the genin's left eye, then quickly flicked his wrist, scooping in and gouging out the eye.

Only for Naruto to vanish in a poof of smoke.

A small hand holding a kunai snaked out from the resulting smoke cloud and stabbed at his face, deflecting up off of Bari's pronounced cheek-bones and embedding itself deep in the missing nin's right eye, killing him instantly.

Bari continued to shake for several moments, before falling forward and crashing face first into the wall of the gladiatorial pit.

Several moments later, Sasuke stepped forward out of the earth wall, followed several seconds later by Naruto and Sakura, neither of whom was injured in the slightest. The Sakura and Sasuke who were lying in pain, apparently wounded from Bari's last lightning jutsu, vanished in poofs of smoke.

_"Remember the first time Zabuza died."_

'Got it.' thought Sakura, as she threw a kunai which sank cleanly into the back of Bari's neck, severing his spinal column and ensuring his death. Her teammates seemed confused for several seconds before they remembered the last missing nin they'd faced.

Kakashi then leapt down from his vantage point at the mouth of the hole, clapping slowly, "You are devious little genin, you know that? Using illusion clones to break up his attack pattern, then using suicidal shadow clones to carry a flash-bang tag right up to him, getting him angry enough and distracted enough to not notice you diving into the walls with your new jutsu and giving him the wounded genin he wanted so desperately to see, luring him into Sasuke's striking range for one final hit."

"We're lucky he was an idiot." Sakura said blandly.

"We're lucky we're so awesome." Naruto said happily.

Sasuke was pointedly trying to not look at the corpse of his first kill. Kakashi saw this, and said softly, "He was a bad person, about as unambiguously as you'll ever see."

"I know," said Sasuke, "and I still feel disgusted with myself for killing him. How can I kill _him_, if my knees are shaking from killing scum like this?"

Kakashi looked at his students and said, "I'm nowhere near blonde enough to help you with that, so when we get back to Konoha I'll see about getting you three some time with Inoichi. But to put it simply, Sasuke, you'll always feel regret for killing a person, it can't be helped. It's a biological mechanism, we're uncomfortable with anything that reminds us too closely of our own mortality. It gets easier, with time, but it's always there. If you don't feel something during or after a kill, then it means you have a serious problem."

All three genin looked at their sensei with wide eyes and frowns.

"But enough gloom and doom, I'll show you how we typically preserve corpses for bounties, then we'll clean up and head to our campsite. We lost a lot of time with this bozo today, but we should still be able to reach the site I picked for our research by tomorrow evening."

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei." Sasuke said meekly.

"No problem," answered Kakashi quietly, "And hey, at least this mission went crazy in a small enough matter for you guys to handle yourselves. Hopefully the rest of the mission will be quiet."

_"pfffffffffffffffffffffffffahahahaha, oh god he's serious, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH**HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!**"_

'Shut up, Ishi.'

* * *

**AN: You know, in all of Naruto, I don't think you ever see Sasuke kill someone. Diedara and Itachi commit suicide, Orochimaru is killed by Itachi, and B fakes his death. No one Sasuke tries to kill actually dies by his hand. Which is shocking, because even Naruto kills Kakuzu, and he's the most masochistically naive ninja in all of canon.**

**Additionally, you don't see a lot of the potential variety of missing nin in canon. There's basically just Uchiha, scorned artists, failed revolutionaries or traitors, and one cultist. Their methods are bland, and their characterization is repetitive. So I made an OC cannibal with the shakes, and let Kakashi use it as a teachable moment for his genin, who decided to show the audience what a ninja fight SHOULD be like.**

**That said, sorry it took so long for this to update. I had exams, then Christmas with family at the ass end of nowhere, then computer issues.**

**This chapter was supposed to continue on through the majority of the R&amp;D month, and include an short omake about S S!Team 7 trouncing Ibiki's exam, but it didn't flow well, so I decided to break them up and keep what I'd written for the next chapter. **

**Thank you for your patience, and I look forward to your reviews.**


	18. Chapter 18: Logistical Woes

Stick and Stones Chapter 18: Logistical woes

**Do I own Naruto? Does a gerontocracy steeped in tradition and built around secrecy and espionage promote creative development?**

* * *

After dealing with the worst cook in Fire Country, Team 7 made quick progress to the site Kakashi had picked to serve as their campground for the next month. It was a large clearing in the more sparse woods near the border with River Country, out of the way of any major paths or roads. The area was remarkable only in it's normality: No ninja ever had a real reason to go through it, any trip could be faster or more comfortable by going somewhere else, either by boat a few dozen miles south, or by a more direct path a similar distance north. As such, it was rarely monitored by any of the border patrols on either sides of the border. This was compounded by the fact that River country was a buffer with little military initiative of it's own, and there had been peace between all the nearby nations for decades. It was basically a completely unimportant area with nothing more important for miles in any direction. There were rivers nearby, plenty of game and plant-life for food, and no ninja who might stumble across Sakura's newest experiments in sadistic destruction of life and sanity.

In short, it was the perfect place for an extended research mission and unofficial training mission.

This was, of course, why Kakashi had picked this location. The Third Hokage had all but told him that something big was happening, and that his students would probably be involved. Telling a jonin to make fresh genin as strong as possible just wasn't done; especially with politically polarizing pupils like Naruto and Sasuke. Giving strength and techniques to untested genin had a history of either creating glory-seeking idiots who died in unnecessary conflicts or allowing foreign plants to steal valuable knowledge.

This was part of the reason that the most powerful ninja were almost always clan ninja: shinobi culture didn't support rapid growth without an expansive support structure.

Additionally, the mentality of preexisting knowledge leading to strength hampered the rare individual who tried to create a new technique or style. Very few ninja had the patience or vision to work creatively from theory in any of the shinobi arts, especially when standard training methods and clan teachings gave more steady and more readily apparent results. The mentality also helped the popularity of taijutsu and ninjutsu over genjutsu and the more esoteric shinobi arts.

If the Third Hokage wanted Kakashi to educate his student's without regard for the established taboos of teaching ninja, there was a damn good reason for it.

Which was how Team 7 found itself in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere on the border between Konoha and it's biggest ally, establishing a perimeter of Sakura's border seals in a oblong loop covering several miles of border. Thank god for Naruto's Army of One's, or it would take days to set up the warning systems Kakashi's paranoia demanded, instead of the four hours it actually took.

Of course, Kakashi couldn't actually tell his students any of the real motivations for his actions, whether they involve their vacation site, defenses, or teaching methods, but like any good shinobi scout, he was prepared.

* * *

"Gather round, my cute little genin,-" *cough*cough*, "- and Ebisu," Kakashi said hastily, "as I explain how the next month is going to go. Now I'm sure your wondering why, if we're in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, we bothered to set up such a large perimeter for a field test and some training time. The answer is simple: OpFor."

"OpFor?" Naruto and Sakura asked in unison, while Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Ebisu, meanwhile, seemed to finally understand the eccentric actions Kakashi had taken.

"Opposing Forces," Kakashi answered before continuing in a dramatic voice,"You see, YOU three genin are now the last line of defense of Konoha's borders against the team of your nefarious enemies, Ebisu and the mysterious and powerful Kakashi."

Naruto and Sasuke's eyes grew wide in apprehension, while Sakura slumped at her sensei's antics.

"Every day, You three will place a flag here in camp, while Ebisu and I go off and hide outside of the perimeter. Your job, it to set up traps with Sakura's tags, and then use either those tags, or your own abilities to stop up from stealing this flag." said Kakashi, as he pulled a small red flag and alarm clock out of his pack.

"Wait" Sakura interjected, "Do we know anything about where you'll come from, or do we have to set traps along the entire perimeter?"

"Well, for the sake of the exercise, Ebisu and I will be enemies, so we'll mainly be coming from the foreign border, but you should still set up some defenses along the eastern perimeter as well."

"I don't have anywhere near enough tags for that." Sakura said in disbelief.

"Well that's a shame," Kakashi said, "I guess you'll have to use what you have to the greatest possible effect. After all, you very rarely get to go to war with all the supplies you want to have."

"But I can't even use half of the stuff I brought if we're going to be defending against you, without potentially maiming you or Ebisu-san." Sakura interjected, "How am I supposed to test my work in an exercise that won't allow them?"

_'Shadow clones.'_

"Don't worry about hurting me or Ebisu," Kakashi said placatingly, "We'll be using shadow clones to prevent injury."

_'Called it.'_

"Anyway," Kakashi continued, "You three will have the rest of today to confer and plan, tomorrow at dawn you can start setting traps, and at noon the game begins, If you can protect the flag for 2 hours, you win. Then we'll debrief and discuss what does and doesn't work, and spend the evenings training."

Sakura spoke up to ask, "So what's the safe word, Kakashi-sensei?"

The two older ninja stared at the young girl, for a moment

"Sakura-chan, you naughty girl." Kakashi managed to get out after several seconds.

Realizing the implication of what she'd said, Sakura turned beet red before shouting out, "NOT LIKE THAT, KAKASHI-SENSEI!"

"Oh? Then what did you mean?" needled Kakashi.

"I meant, what if we need to stop the game in the middle for some reason?"

"That's actually a good point," Kakashi said as he rubbed his chin, "Ok, if anyone says the word 'toadspawn' or sends up a red flare, we'll stop the games, for whatever reason. Any questions?"

The three genin shook their heads.

"Then get to it."

* * *

_The Next Day, shortly after noon._

Ebisu wasn't sure what to make of his mission. He'd thought that it would be a basic field test, watch a genin make some new exploding tag or something. He'd assumed the mission would be a relaxing vacation of some sort, until he'd learned exactly who would be going on the mission. Once he learned that a high profile team like Team 7 was involved, he'd suspected that there was more to this mission then the report said. After all, it made little sense for the Hokage to order a mission to test a fresh genin's foray into fuuinjutsu. Typically, learning seals required a dedicated teacher, carefully ladling out seal matrices over a long period of time, allowing a student to pick up several more robust sealing techniques without compromising his or her regular training.

Sure, anyone could buy a textbook on sealing, but very few had the mix of ADD to come up with new seals as needed and OCD to make them work properly. In theory it could be done, but in practice very few bothered. Learning a seal that worked was much easier and less intensive than learning how to make a seal work.

So he'd prepared for a babysitting mission, watching a sparkly eye'd genin test her toys, while the Hokage used it as an excuse to keep valuable village assets out of trouble.

Then they'd been attacked by a psychotic cannibal and he'd learned that Team 7 was much more devious than most genin teams and that Kakashi was apparently quite willing to throw them off the deep end if he felt they could learn from the experience, but Ebisu hadn't quite realized how sadistic the members of Team 7 could be until now.

_*pop*_

A small jagged metal ball had hopped up from a the ground in front of him, prompting the tutor to jump behind a nearby tree as the small sphere exploded.

_*fwit*_

Ebisu quickly substituted himself with a loose branch on a nearby tree, which was promptly perforated with needles.

_*fsssssss*_

He leapt to a different tree, keeping his eyes on the tag that had ignited from his proximity.

_*BANG*_

Ebisu stumbled oddly on the tree trunk as he tried to rub the stars from his eyes. "Fucking flash-bangs." he mumbled to himself, feeling the words more than hearing them.

Paying attention, he didn't hear or see any more traps going off, but seals fuctioning as chakra sensing triggers were maddeningly frustrating to spot. The perimeter seal Sakura had adapted into a trigger mechanism was enough to justify this entire trip, judging from his experience.

After several seconds of calm, Ebisu hopped of the tree trunk to return to the ground-

_*crash*_

-only to fall into a pitfall trap where he had been sure was undisturbed ground. Then, to add insult to injury, paint balloons fell from several pockets, freed by the the disturbed surface, coating their victim in an assortment of neon colors, followed by a small rain of feathers. Why had the genin even brought pranking supplies on a mission?

Suddenly, something felt off with his chakra.

_*pop*_

* * *

_Elsewhere:_

The original Ebisu suddenly flinched, almost upsetting the shogi board between them.

Kakashi looked up at his opponent and partner for the days events, raised his visible eyebrow, and asked, "They got you already? It's barely been an hour."

"Your genin," Ebisu answered flatly, "Are tricky little devils. I'm not even sure what happened, there was paint and feathers, then the clone's chakra went wonky."

"Yup," Kakashi answered, "They could probably all pass the chuunin exam this time around, since it was hosted in Konoha, but this mission was deemed more important. When they work together, and have time to prepare, they almost always come up with something unexpected."

"Do you think your clone will steal the flag?" Ebisu asked as he made his move.

"Maybe, depends on the traps they come up with." Kakashi answered calmly.

* * *

_With Kakashi's clone:_

"NOT ENOUGH TAGS MY ROASTED ASS!" Kakashi shouted darted from tree branch to tree branch, narrowly dodging a chain of explosives. Everywhere he landed, he could here a new hiss.

He would have just buring himself and waited for the explosions to end, but he could sense some chakra signatures just beneath the ground, presumably some sort of mine, and he no desire to trigger them.

Suddenly the explosions stopped. Kakashi paused, wondering if the last few tags had all misfired or if they had been something other than explosive tags. Then, several kunai flew through the tree's arround him in all directions, but none came even close to hitting him, except for one blade that flew straight and rather slowly right towards him. Not wanting to move in an uncertain environment if he could avoid it, Kakashi quickly drew a kunai from his pocket, deflecting the first blade.

However, when the two blades met, there was a spark, and the clone seized up, unprepared for the electric current coursing through the blade into Kakashi's body. The clone could just barely make out a wire stretching from the blade he had blocked toan unknown point in the trees.

_*pop*_

* * *

_The Fortress of Doom_

Kakashi leapt from his seat.

Ebisu looked at him and said, "I know I'm winning the game, but it shouldn't bother you that much."

Kakashi looked at him confusedly for several seconds before saying "Oh, right, shogi." He then sat down, seemingly having regained his composure, he moved a piece on the board, "Checkmate."

Ebisu's jaw went slack when he realized that it was indeed checkmate.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to have a word with my students on the meaning of overkill."

* * *

_The previous day_

"Alright, Naruto, Sasuke time to get to work. We don't have enough finished tags to trap the border, so we're going to have to start cranking them out at top speed. Even with my sympathy copier seals, I can only make about 10 at a time, I can't charge more than a few dozen without getting tired, and I already used all the chakra I stole from the two of you making some surprises that I won't be using in this test until we've finished using everything else." Sakura said, as she led Naruto and Sasuke into the small, candlelit bunker they had made to sleep in.

"But Sakura-chan," Naruto asked, "How are we supposed to help with that?"

"It's simple, Naruto." Sakura answered, snapping her fingers and conjuring a bale of paper tags, "We're going to make more tags while we discuss traps."

"Neither of us can make any tags," Sasuke interjected.

"Turn on you eyes," Sakura said blandly as she set up stations for two people to use her sympathy printer seals to make tags, "I'll show you how to make the basic tags; flashbang, explosive, storage, needle-thrower, taser, landmine, antipersonnel mine, water-spraying, etc. Naruto has enough chakra to charge thousands of tags, so you and I will write them, Naruto will charge them, and we can discuss how we're going to light fire's under Kakashi's ass while we do it."

Naruto frowned at her explanation.

Sakura rolled here eyes and said, "If we have time, I'll show you how to make the tags on your own, but bullshit Sharingan copying is sort of perfect for learning to draw a small number of discrete seals, even if neither of you will pick up the theory to modify them or design new seals."

"What if we run out of paper?" Sasuke asked.

"We won't," Sakura said with a wolfish grin, "I found a guy who sells paper wholesale, and used part of the requisition allowance to get a few dozen bales."

Sasuke let out a low whistle.

_'Getting your teammates to mass produce your creations for fun and profit ? __Sakura, have I ever mentioned that I love you?'_

_'_Only every day'

_'Well it's still true.'_

"Now come on you two, we're only got so much time to prep for tomorrow."

**AN: Sorry it took so long to post this chapter, but between moving, blizzards, and mole people, I didn't have a lot of time, but things have calmed down, so I should have more time now. To my loyal fans, I am still alive, and more updates are coming in the future.**


	19. Chapter 19: Sucks to be Ebis-u

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or anything else that gets a shout-out.**

* * *

**Sticks and Stones Chapter 19: Sucks to be Ebis-u**

"You taught Sasuke sealing in less than a day, and worked together using Naruto's infinite labor force and chakra to mass produce your traps?" Kakashi asked incredulously.

"No, Kakashi-sensei, I just had Sasuke copy me making a few finished seals, teaching him sealing would have taken a lot longer than teaching him to plagiarize." Sakura answered, while Sasuke and Naruto nodded in agreement.

"Kakashi," Ebisu said, "You've created three little monsters."

"I know, Ebisu, I know" Kakashi answered with a sigh. "But more to the point, now that you've explained how you managed to trap several miles of border so thoroughly, it's time to discuss how to improve you placement, then we'll get to normal training, now that we're no longer travelling it's time for you each to learn your personal jutsu."

"YES!" shouted Naruto and Sakura, while Sasuke let slip a smile.

"Now, you saw how Ebisu and I did, so what have you learned about trapping against experienced ninja?"

"You need to set traps in anticipating of a ninja's reactions, layering traps somewhere a ninja will think is safe around something blatantly, obviously dangerous." Sasuke said.

"If you hide your traps so well no one can find any, you'll just make ninja paranoid and highly alert, so leave some hidden badly to get an enemy to relax," Sakura agreed, "A ninja on the lookout for amateurish traps is more likely to get caught than a ninja looking for expert traps."

"And even if you get really clever in your pranks, you need to have something to prevent a brute-force solution." Naruto said, "You ran right through a minefield so fast you were past the explosions by the time the tags went off."

"Anything else?" Kakashi said,

"OH!" Naruto exclaimed, "If you managed to set something that an experienced ninja has no way to expecting, like a glue and feathers in a pitfall trap, they'll freeze up enough for a hidden chakra drain tag to get them."

"And," Sakura interjected, "Traps are static, given time an observant nin could almost always find a way through."

"You need to work in tandem with traps to herd enemies or adapt to unexpected skills." Sasuke nodded.

"How would you improve your traps, now that you've identified these problems?" Kakashi asked.

"Bigger explosions!" shouted Naruto, pumping a fist in the air.

"Shorter fuses? " Sasuke said quietly, giving his orange teammate a look.

"Distance between triggers and the actual traps, or traps with directional effects, so even if you just run through them, they'll either explode ahead of you or shoot you from behind." Sakura said thoughtfully, running over trigger designs mentally. "Or having one trigger set off multiple tags, one with a blatant and visible effect, and others with more subtle affects."

_"Having traps arm latent traps in the same area, so you can't just use clones or cannon fodder to reliably clear an area, or setting up a battlefield with traps that can be used as environmental force multipliers, so you can fight enemy ninja in them and use the traps you know about to help tilt the battle."_

_"_Very good Sakura," said Kakashi, pointedly annoying the two genin who hadn't learned to hide their pyromaniac tendencies in mixed company, "Now, to give you more time to imagine dastardly and devious means of dispensing death and destruction upon trespassers, you'll all be running five laps of the perimeter before we start on taijutsu drills."

The three genin all pouted.

"And if you have enough time after taijutsu drills and chakra control exercises, We'll start working on your reward jutsu for managing to get your body flicker jutsu's to an acceptable level." said Kakashi, "But _only_, if we have enough time after basic training."

The three genin all started running in different directions, trying to get to the perimeter as quickly as possible, desperate for any new flashy techniques their sensei would give them. All three knew academically that mastery and flexibility of skills were more important than individual techniques, but that didn't mean they didn't want new ways to make physics their bitch.

Ebisu, meanwhile, looked at the senior ninja and asked, "Did they disarm the traps?"

"Nope."

"So they'll be-"

"Running through the minefields twice, once after exhausting themselves running close to 30 miles."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Nope", Kakashi answered glumly, "But great ninja are forged in adversity the same way steel is forged in flames. And those three do not have the luxury of being mediocre, they'll be great or they'll die."

"Their's even more to this mission than I thought, isn't there."

"Endless Layers of concealment, hiding the truth." Kakashi answered noncommittally, knowing Ebisu would understand.

"I'm going to have to go through that godforsaken minefield again tomorrow, aren't I?"

"And every day after for the rest of the month, barring bijuu or invasion."

"Dammit."

* * *

_A week later_

Ebisu stalked through the forest, slowly making his way through the heavily trapped perimeter. He had learned not to rush simply because the genin would know his point of entry. He didn't have enough chakra or strong enough defensive techniques to block the various explosions, needles, or lightning attacks that seemed to rule Team 7's hearts, and if he set off one trap, he would inevitably be forced to set off more as he tried to avoid the effect, increasing the chance that an attack would get through and alerting his 'opponents' to his exact location.

No thank you, stealth would serve. The genin knew his general location thanks to the perimeter seals, but they didn't seem to know exactly where he was yet. Thankfully. Sasuke was surprisingly terrifying when fighting in an area he had helped trap. His perfect recollection of the location of trap triggers and their blast radiuses meant that attacks almost never came from Sasuke directly, but Ebisu had learned that taking his eyes off the genin to focus on the traps themselves was a great way to end up on the recieving end of a kunai-and-phoenix-sage-fire enhanced Thousand-Years-Of-Death attack.

'Why,' Ebisu thought to himself, 'Why would Kakashi pass on that specific terrible legacy of the Second Hokage? Couldn't he have passed on something less dangerous? Maybe the Dragon Slave jutsu? Or the All-Devouring Crimson Face technique? Why did he share the TYOD?' and the three genin hadn't even pulled out the new techniques Kakashi had handed them yet (probably the explosive castration technique, knowing the sadist).

Naruto would simply swarm him with clones until the cluster-fuck of a battle would inevitably drive both of them into the traps, while Sakura set new traps all around him, until there was literally no escape that didn't involve needles or fire, then proceed to bombard him with those thrice-damned fucking HELLISH FLASHBANGS until he made a mistake. But while all three genin were dangerous on a battlefield of their choosing, they still weren't quite as psychologically horrifying as Sasuke dodging needles by millimeters to keep them out of view until there was no chance to dodge.

Ebisu stopped, noticing the subtle signs of a pitfall trap dug with earth techniques, examining his surroundings, he noticed several needle traps in the trees; from what he could guess, they were meant to corral him if he tried to use the trees to avoid the pitfall trap. Undoubtedly there were similar defenses on the ground all around him here to drive him to a needle-based 'death' above. Looking up, Ebisu carefully mapped the various trajectories and noted there was a hole in the spread.

Ebisu frowned, the genin rarely left such blatant holes when setting up their fields of fire: this one was probably another trap. Ebisu ignored it and looked again, noticing a much smaller hole in the setup. One of the tags seemed to have been placed crookedly, leaving a path laterally through the trees. With any luck, he might actually make it to the flag today. After the first day, Kakashi had made it to the flag in the last half hour of the game without fail, while Ebisu had yet to 'survive' the day's game.

He was moderately surprised, as he hadn't expected Naruto and Sasuke to be so enthusiastic about traps and deception. Everything he knew about them said it would take a pretty serious trauma of some kind to convince them to use the more subtle ninja arts.

Taking a deep breath and readying himself, Ebisu leapt to the trees.

*fwwt*fwwt*fwwt* went the traps as Ebisu narrowly avoided the rain of needles, quickly heading to the blind-spot of the trap,

*BZZZZZT*

*Poof*

* * *

Several kilometers away, Ebisu sighed

* * *

_*Flashback* Jutsu Practice during the First Day_

"So, Kakashi-sensei" Naruto cried out, "What awesome jutsu are you going to teach me? How to breath fire? shoot lightning? explode pumpkins? Maybe turn Chakra into a legendary sword?"

"No legendary swords," Kakashi answered, "It is a lightning technique you'll be learning."

"AWESOME!" shouted Naruto, "So how do I shot lightning bolts, Kakashi-sensei"

"You don't," Kakashi answered with an eye-smile, "It's a barrier technique."

Naruto's mouth flapped open for a second, but just as it looked like he would protest, the teacher continued, "It's called the Capacitor Barrier, and I've personally never gotten much use of it. Not many people use it. It requires three or more people to work in tandem and it only makes a limited, planar barrier between them that won't physically stop anything trying to pass through it. It's finicky and easy to mess up. But-," Kakashi continued, barely managing to head off the nearly mutinous look on Naruto's face, "-it forms an incredibly powerful barrier that can't be seen or detected until it goes off, except by several sensory techniques. Anything tangible with chakra that tries to pass the barrier makes it discharge, releasing a disproportionately powerful lightning bolt. Even better, With four or more ninja, you can make multiple surfaces instead of one plane, effectively forming cages. The trick is not frying yourself or your allies while using the technique."

"If it's so dangerous, why are you teaching it to me?" asked Naruto, a touch of surprise in his eyes.

"You tell me." Kakashi answered, "Why would I teach you this kind of collaboration technique."

Naruto thought for a minute before answering.

"Clones. I can have them set up barriers or cages. It should be easier to work with myself then with other ninja, and if a clone gets fried, I won't get hurt."

"Exactly right." answered Kakashi with a smile, earning one in return from Naruto. "When you try the Jutsu, you have to _feel_ the flow of chakra between your clones, make it smooth and let it build. Like a dam holding back a small river, you build a lake of chakra desperate to be released. If you have time, you can slowly build up to a truely huge level, but it's better to have a less chakra you can keep under control then a huge mass of lightning that goes off as soon as someone twitches."

"But Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, "My chakra control is terrible."

"eeeeehhh, It's not terrible, you're just not very good at precise control and usage yet, but this is more about building a charge until **you** are ready to release it, keeping chakra from moving until **you** are ready instead of finicky and complex usage. Now, are you ready?'

Naruto took a deep breath before answering, "YES KAKASHI-SENSEI"

"Very good. Now the handsigns are..."

* * *

_One week after Naruto managed to shock Ebisu out of complacency_

Ebisu carefully moved around a splash tag, avoiding being drenched by a narrow margin, before using a body flicker to avoid a descending cloud of flour, managing to get out of the range of one of Sakura's gas barriers. He flickered out forward into a tree and took cover behind its trunk, knowing that the flour and barrier were the setup of a dust explosion which would break the barrier and create a back-draft. It had taken the genin several days to get the dust concentration and barrier size and strength just right to trigger a back-draft, but the results made some truly beautiful fires.

Beauty aside, Ebisu had no intention of losing the game again, not if he could help it. He had already made the mistake of going into the trees, where visual obstructions made it harder to spot traps until it was too late, but dropping to the ground now was asking for trouble. This far from the ground, it was impossible to find the jutsu crafted pitfall traps used by Team 7, and with his luck on of the genin was circling in the earth beneath him, waiting for him.

Well nuts to that, Ebisu had walked for miles to get to the side of the perimeter facing the interior of Fire country, hoping they hadn't trapped it as thoroughly, and he wasn't going to let that go to waste because on one desperate decision.

Making up his mind, Ebisu scanned the tree around him, and looked for obvious traps, then looked for less obvious traps, then subtle traps and nightmarish traps. Tensing up when none became apparent, Ebisu wondered if he had been luck and found a hole in the minefield, or if there were traps he couldn't see.

*snort*

Yeah, that was hard to figure out.

Getting ready for a desperate charge , Ebisu picked a branch 5 meters away , but just as he leapt from his current branch, his head swam, and his foot slipped, turning a graceful leap into desperate, chaotic, caterwauling. Hitting his head on the branch he had aimed for, Ebisu fell to the earth, into a pitfall trap that hadn't been there before, impaling himself on an earthen spike.

* * *

The real Ebisu cursed in response to his clone's failure.

* * *

_*Flashback* Jutsu Practice during the First Day_

"Are you ready for your your jutsu?" Kakashi asked.

Sasuke chuckled as his eyes flashed red, "Hehe, please,"

"Alright, but first, tell me what you know about genjutsu."

"Genjutsu?" Sasuke said with a frown, "You make an enemy see something that isn't there."

"Well yes," Kakashi agreed, "In general, genjutsu are techniques used to fool the sense with false signals of some kind. We rely on our sight, so most techniques target them, but not all genjutsu are visual. What other senses could you target?"

"Sound, Smell, Touch, and Taste." answered the genin, not liking where this conversation was going.

"And?"

"and nothing, people only have 5 senses."

"Nope," answered Kakashi, "Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste and Touch are the five most commonly recognized senses, called the Aristotelian senses, though we don't know why, but there are others. People can sense ambient temperature or acceleration. You also have a sense called proprioception, some limited sense of time, a sense of pain, and myriad other minor senses to maintain personal equilibrium. Very few people agree on what is considered an individual 'sense', especially because some tie together. For example, your sense of proprioception, which is how you know where your arms and legs are in relation to your body, combines with your sense for acceleration to help you maintain balance."

"So?" Sasuke asked, "If someone's balance is messed up in the middle of a battle, they'd pretty much know instantly something's wrong and check for genjutsu."

"Yup," Kakashi answered, "This genjutsu is particularly unsubtle in the that way. Against any opponent worth their salt, you'll but maybe a few seconds, but if you use it right, that's all you need."

"Hm?" Sasuke asked.

"The technique you'll be learning, called the Regency technique, messes with the myriad sensory nerves relating to internal equilibrium, mostly affecting balance, but it also effects the baroreceptors that monitor blood pressure and several other minor controls for internal equilibrium." Kakashi said, "It has little offensive power of it's own, but if someone doesn't dispel it for a few minutes, they'll probably lose consciousness as their body tries to compensate for high blood pressure and frantic changes in gravity and air pressure that aren't there. Against a ready opponent it won't do much more than buy you a few seconds, it works much more effectively to make openings in combat."

"So I either use it to set up an ally, a trap, or use it to keep them from dodging a slow attack?"

"Yup" Kakashi said, "It's also a great non-lethal way of dealing with civilian level thugs. When you can drop a guy by staring at him, his friends typically don't try to mess with you."

"Meh, I guess it'll have to do." Sasuke said with a shrug, "What are the handsigns?"

"Here, as you go through them imagine your chakra clogging up the nerves in their face and head."

* * *

_One week after Sasuke makes Ebisu look like an infomercial character_

Ebisu's left eye twitched.

On the ground in front of him, about 20 feet away, there was a banana-creme pie.

He had made his way through most of the minefield, he was less than a 500 feet from the flag, and he might actually win today. But it seemed that the genin were toying with him.

"Oh screw it," Ebisu muttered to himself as he made a shadow clone to spring whatever trap the genin had left here.

The clone sighed, then walked calmed right up to the pie.

Nothing happened.

The clone walked around the pie several times, jumping over it, and stomping his feet.

Nothing happened.

The clone crouched down and poked the pie.

Nothing happened.

The clone stood up and continued to walk past the pie for several steps before turning back to his progenitor and shrugging, who muttered darkly to himself before stomping forward into the apparently safe area.

Before he reached the pie, however Ebisu's foot caught on something thick and metalic that he couldn't see, making him fall forward, face first.

He landed just short of the pie.

The second clone rushed back to help the first, just as a storage seal emptied itself in the trees above them.

Both Ebisu clones were crushed by falling rocks.

* * *

Miles away, Ebisu flipped the shogi board he and Kakashi had been using.

* * *

_*Flashback* Jutsu Practice during the First Day_

_"_So what are you going to teach me today, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked coyly.

"This jutsu is a special one." Kakashi said, "It was taught to me by my sensei, who learned it from his sensei, who invented it."

_"Can it be? Are we really going to learn it?"_

"What's it called?" Sakura asked with awe.

"This technique, invented by Jiraiya-sama, is called the Transparent Escape technique." Kakashi answered solemnly.

"Is it what I think it is?" Sakura asked hesitantly.

"It's exactly what you think it is." Kakashi answered with a nod.

Sakura grinned just a tad wider than her teacher was comfortable with.

_"WE ARE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"_

Kakashi shivered before continuing and showing Sakura the hand signs.

* * *

_Several seconds after rocks fell on Ebisu and his clones_

Sakura materialized from where she head been crouching in the clearing near the pie, holding the metal stage hook she had used to trip Ebisu.

_"I can't believe you missed the pie."_

'Like you could do any better, Ishi?_'_

_"Yes, Yes I would. I come from a long tradition of pie slingers and would never make such a rookie mistake as tripping an enemy to soon for them to fall face first into the pie."_

'Long tradition of pie slingers? You're a voice in my head!"

_"What? I can't have hobbies?"_

'No, you actually can't, you're incorporeal and stuck in my head, now shut up you crazy psychosis, if we hurry, we might be able to help Naruto and Sasuke FINALLY stop Kakashi-sensei.'

_"Oh I see how it is, the minute you get what you want, I'm just 'a crazy psychosis', and you'll toss me to the side for some younger voice in your head with perkier boobs and clearer skin."_

'I TOLD YOU, I'M NOT SEDUCING HINATA!'

* * *

_A week after Ebisu emulates Curly and Moe_

Kakashi was impressed with his genin. The traps had consistently become more complex, more encompassing, and more difficult to spot with each passing day. When he'd started using his Sharingan to cheat, the genin had started mixing in normal traps that didn't rely on chakra triggers. They all resembled normal pranks, but concealed downright lethal methods, such as poisonous paint and flour-explosions, He'd even had to start cheating by using extra clones and spying on them as they set traps in the morning.

Sure it wasn't fair, but he could let his adorable genin get complacent by thinking they could beat their sensei.

Besides, Rule #2 applied to him as well.

Though this was the last day of the exercise before they disarmed all the traps and headed home, so maybe he would let the catch him today, at the last minute, as close to the flag as possible. Let them sweat over how marginal the victory would be.

Kakashi jumped back as an opaque, black, hemispherical barrier formed on the ground around where he had been as he thought to himself, 'That wasn't there when the genin set up traps this morning.'

So apparently the genin had set up a trap after the game had begun, meaning that this particular trap had some significance, something that stopped Sakura from making enough to saturate the perimeter with them.

The barrier was _**black**_. Not 'dark', not 'gray', not 'black', but **_black_**. It didn't reflect light of any kind, and it was almost impossible to judge the curve of the surface of the bubble. It looked more like a hole in space than an actual object.

The jounin made a clone, which approached the bubble and poked it, only for some think liquid gel to stick to his finger as he pulled his hand back. The clone rubbed the liquid between his fingers, before taking a sniff.

"Smells almost like oil," the clone called back to his comrade, "But it's thick, much to thick for oil, and a little sticky."

"Poison?" called back the original clone, who had retreated to a distance of about 30 feet.

"Doubt it, why would she put it outside of the barrier?"

"It smells _like _oil?"

"Yup"

"So maybe it burns?"

"But there's no source of ignition?"

"Assuming the trap didn't fail, why use the barrier at all, and why make a barrier so opaque?"

"Well what other tags use the barrier?"

"Only the default barriers she uses for defense and area denial, or the flour-explosion/back-draf-"

At this point, the opaque barrier failed, oxygen reached the dying fire inside it, causing a small explosion.

An explosion that ignited the substance that had been dripping down the outside of the bubble and propelling it wildly in each direction.

* * *

The real Kakashi laughed to himself, drawing a raised eyebrow from the real, and frowning, Ebisu.

Seeing the look of curiosity, Kakashi said, "Those little monsters finally got me."

"Really?" asked a shocked Ebisu, not quite able to believe one of Konoha's legends had been caught in a trap by genin, even genin as sadistically cruel and brutally cunning as Team 7.

"I let my curiosity get the best of me when they pulled out some new trap, it had a bigger blast radius then I expected."

"Ah" Ebisu responded.

"But It seems I'm going to have to have a talk with Sakura about appropriate times and places for napalm.

* * *

_Meanwhile with Sakura_

"_See? I told you, purify cellulose from plant matter, then mix with the nitric acid we bought to make nitrocellulose, which is a flammable thickening agent for oil."_

'Yes Ishi, I'll never doubt you when it comes to making Napalm again.

_"Not just Napalm. You doubted with the dust explosion, you doubted with the backdraft, and you doubted the napalm. So what have you **really** learned."_

Sakura sighed before answering, 'Never doubt your Will to Fire'

_"Damn straight, Nietzsche_._"_

* * *

_Meanwhile, with Ishi's karaoke team_

Kabuto had an idea. A dangerous idea.

It was risky, but if it paid off, it could solve a lot of problems.

He had considered asking Ishi for advice, but Sakura and Kabuto were both out of Konoha, and even if Kabuto could contact his almost friend, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

All his life, people have been using Kabuto as a pawn and people wanted him for his skills as a minion and ninja, but if Kabuto immediately deferred to Ishi for this decision, then he was just establishing himself as someone else's minion, and he wasn't sure he could trust Ishi that far yet.

Sure, Ishi had trusted him with a loooooooooooot of juicy intel about some major players in the world, intel that could topple nations and gods, but was Ishi sincere about friendship or playing him? So, no, Kabuto couldn't quite bring this idea to Ishi.

Hell, how Ishi responded to it would tell him a lot about how Ishi really thought about him, especially with a plan as risky as this.

But if the idea worked, Kabuto would be establishing autonomy (of a sort) in his new friendship, and drastically improve the global situation.

Kabuto nodded to himself before turning to Orochimaru, who had been ranting about the absence of Sasuke Uchiha in the Chuunin exams ruining his plans, and saying, "If you truly want a body with the sharingan, then it occurs to me that there might be a way of procuring one that is incapable of resisting your body transfer technique, Orochimaru-sama."

* * *

_Back with Team 7_

Five ninja were sitting around a campfire enjoying dinner. Ebisu was a little sore that he had lost the OpFor game every day of the four weeks they had been training. Kakashi was proud that his genin had done so well, and the genin were smiling and laughing as they celebrated their final victory of the training mission. Tomorrow they would pack up their traps and tags, then head back to Konoha. Barring another serial killer, they would have a 2 day journey and return the day before the final stage of the chuunin exam, and get a chance to observe other genin and gauge their own progress.

Then the map baring the perimeter seals began to light up, drawing all of their attention.

**AN: Yup, I'm updating on Sucks-To-Be-Single day, and if I have to be lonely and miserable, you get a cliffhanger. I've left hints at what's going to happen with Team 7, but here's a blatant one if you haven't figured it out yet: Team 7 is at the border with River Country, now go look at a map of the elemental nations.**

**See you later for the thrilling conclusion of PIGS IIIIIIN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE**


	20. Chapter 20: An Elaborate Final Exam

**AN: I'm back b*tches, and I f*cking detest the wave equation and the Robin condition for it. Here's hoping I won't have another academic hiatus till at least November. **

**Chapter 20**: **A Really Elaborate Final**

"Well that's...interesting" Kakashi said as he looked at the map that represented the perimeter seals. Four lights were slowly moving across the map from River Country to the interior of the land of Fire.

"By the way, "Ebisu interrupted, "I thought your perimeter seals just identified if someone was in an area, not tracking their movements."

"They don't track movement," Sakura answered, "Transmitting that kind of relative information and displaying it would take a long time to set up, the locational trigonometry to identify a chakra signature would be manageable, but transmitting and collating the input from lots of complex seals would be a huge pain to set up on an arbitrary location, so we stuck with the basic binary perimeter seals."

"Then how are you tracking the movements on the map so well?" Ebisu asked.

"I cheated, first I decreased the radius of the individual tags to about 3 meters, then we planted a lot more of them, over the last month we managed to seed most of the area." Sakura answered.

"So you're tracking a large number of discrete points to mimic tracking." Kakashi said in understanding, "But that doesn't answer who is crossing the border here or why."

"Well it's a group of four, moving too fast to be civilians." Sakura said.

"But not particularly fast for ninja." Sasuke continued.

"So they're trying to be sneaky." Naruto said, "Maybe more missing nin?"

"Possible," Kakashi said, "But having four ninja, the standard squad size, makes me think it's not likely to be missing nin."

"So the question becomes," Ebisu continued, "Are they ninja from Konoha returning from a mission abroad, or foreign ninja moving into or through the land of Fire?"

"Only one way to find out, we'll need to head them off and discern their purpose. Sneaking across a border doesn't speak well of their intensions if they're from River, Wind, or Earth country." Kakashi answered, "If they're our ninja returning from a mission, we'll need to stop them before they get caught in the minefield, and if they're enemies, we'll need to ensure they get caught so we can find out why they picked this particular abandoned piece of border to cross over. Ebisu, stay here and watch the map, send up a flare if they have friends following them."

* * *

_Several minutes later_

"Try to stay hidden," Kakashi told his genin, "We can pass off our presence here as a genin team on an easy patrol, which means no heroics. Try to look scared and weak if they spot you, but ideally they shouldn't know you're here at all."

"Hai," answered Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke, as Team 7 leapt through the trees behind their sensei towards the probable path of their unknown intruders, before slowing slightly and beginning to move more stealthily, distancing themselves from their leader.

Soon they reached the edge of the fuuinjutsu minefield, and settled in to wait for the trespassers to reach them.

* * *

_With the Trespassers._

Toshiro Sunanaka was a jounin from Suna, entrusted as the vanguard of the primary invasion force, slightly less than 1000 ninja, entrusted with what would hopefully be an unexpected strike against Konoha's hegemony in the ninja world.

He was considered both subtle enough and expendable enough to scout ahead, and either eliminate or draw away any border patrol that could signal the advance of the army and ruin the element of surprise.

So far, the job had been trivial, their planned route passed through the middle of nowhere, and their moles in Konoha had identified several places with extremely light or irregular patrols. The biggest problem he or the three chuunin he lead had experienced were itchy masks.

His lucky steak however, was over, judging from the figure he could see in the trees ahead of him. They had run into what was probably the only border guard for a dozen miles in any direction. Now he had to decide whether to talk his way past and ambush the enemy nin later or eliminate him now. Each had risk of Konoha getting word of offensive action by Suna ninja if they couldn't decisively deal with the target before he escaped or sent a message to his superiors.

He flashed several rapid hand signals to his squad-mates, before focusing his chakra, drawing a kunai, and charging his opponent while his subordinates separated to take up flanking positions and drawing shuriken or beginning sequences of hand-seals.

He was surprised when his attack was blocked almost casually, by his opponent drawing his own kunai. Toshiro stared into his opponent's eyes, no, his opponent's eye. Grey hair, a mask over his mouth, one eye, Konoha's symbol on his forehead protector.

Toshiro's eyes widened in recognition. What in the name of the Juubi's sundered left testicle was Sharingan Kakashi doing here?

His panic was interrupted by a punch to the face and a kick to the gut, knocking him off of the tree branch he and Kakashi had been standing on. He caught himself before hitting the ground, and managed cling to the trunk of an adjacent tree.

His team picked this moment to rain sharp metal and wind on the enemy, creating a cloud of leaves and sawdust.

No blood, that meant...

"For the **Log** so loved the world that it gave its children, that whoever believes in it will not perish, but have eternal life." came Kakashi's voice from behind him.

Not stopping to turn and look back, Toshiro _leapt_ to a different trunk, taking an idle note of the scraps of log in Kakashi's original position, spinning in the air and throwing his kunai towards his own former position, realizing too late that there was nothing behind him.

'Genjustu?' Toshiro thought belatedly, 'Or ventriloquism?', just before he felt a minor shock surge through him.

When he landed however, Toshiro grounded himself, releasing the capacitor charge, forcefully contracting the muscles in his arms and legs and expelling the air from his lungs in a wordless groan.

'This was a trap,' Toshiro thought to himself 'There's no other reason for a legend like Kakashi to be here in the middle of nowhere.'

"IT'S A TRAP," Toshiro called out to his comrades, "THEY KNOW ABOUT THE INVASION!"

* * *

_Several meters away, where Kakashi is hiding one branch above a Suna chuunin_

_'_Invasion?_'_ Kakashi thought to himself 'Well that complicates things,'

Immediately turning up the lethality, Kakashi exposed Obito's gifted eye, dropped onto the chuunin below, grabbed his chin and the back of his head and _twisted. _As the limp body fell from the tree, Kakashi charged one of the still unharmed ninja, spawning a shadow clone to charge the other.

Both enemies tensed, then leaned forward to meet their respective charged, but the enemy facing Kakashi's clone suddenly lost his balance, and almost fell off the branch, and received a kunai to the throat for his trouble.

The final uninjured enemy nin made a decent showing in taijutsu, before desperately disengaging and charging away from Kakashi. In the dark, he didn't even notice the slight blur in his path, until the Taser tag and Chakra Draining tag that Sakura had planted on him activated, dropping him to his knees for several seconds, allowing Sakura to surreptitiously plant two more Chakra Draining tags on him. In only took him several more seconds to lose consciousness from chakra exhaustion at that point.

Noting the fall of the last enemy, Kakashi turned to the squad leader, his red eye spinning in its socket.

"Tell me what you know about the invasion." Kakashi said.

"I'll never talk," Toshiro answered.

"Well," Kakashi answered, "You _say_ that." before activating several _special_ genjutsu.

* * *

_Twenty Minutes later_

"Good work you three" Kakashi said to his genin, "Naruto, great work setting up that barrier. Sasuke, your timing with the Regency technique was immaculate. Sakura, If I couldn't see chakra, I wouldn't have noticed you planting tags on the last ninja. You three helped take down more experienced and skilled ninja with subtlety and little to no risk to yourselves. I know you missed the chuunin exam this time around, but you've all demonstrated the skills and mentality needed for the rank, right here in the field."

The three genin preened under his praise.

"Unfortunately," Kakashi said, "We have bigger problems."

"An Invasion." Naruto said nervously.

"Yup," Kakashi answered, "It seems that Suna's economic situation has become desperate enough that they're willing to go to war to improve it."

"How would war improve their economic situation?" Sakura asked.

"Think about it, when would their army reach Konoha?" responded Kakashi.

"Maybe two or three days from now, depending on whether they have problems in transit." Sakura said, before her eyes suddenly widened in recognition, "Which means they'd most likely attack during-."

"The Chuunin Exam finals," Sasuke continued, "A big public event, with lots of clients from all over the continent."

"And if they had managed to sneak up on the village," Naruto said in realization, "They'd look super awesome, and make Konoha look really bad, as long as the attack didn't go super badly for them."

"But all this is academic to us, " Kakashi stated, "What matters now, is that for each of us and Ebisu, there are close to 200 hostile ninja camped not far from here, and soon they're going to start wondering what happened to their scouts. We have no easy way of alerting Konoha to the danger, and I doubt we'll be able to stay far enough ahead of them reach Konoha early enough to give the village enough time to prepare for an invasion. While you three are very talented and skilled genin, there's no way the 5 of us can defeat an army of that size, and while my personal jutsu _resembles_ the Hell Finger Stab of the Third Raikage, I'm nowhere near close enough to his skill level to replicate his swan song."

_"You don't need to beat them though."_

Seeing Ishi's point, Sakura spoke up, "We really only have to delay them a day or two, so that a messenger can get enough of a lead to let the village prepare a defense, and it shouldn't be too hard to slow down an army of that size, if we're careful."

"Plus," Naruto said, "We've still got the minefield, and basically just spent a month training in traps and ambush tactics.

Sasuke smirked before contributing, "So we just need to draw them into the minefield and let the chaos ruin their logistics. They'll need to spend time regrouping, and we might even do some damage to their army."

"Which just leaves us the problem of who to send as a messenger."

Sasuke and Naruto both turned to Sakura expectantly.

"Oh, eat a dick." Sakura said

"Well, Naruto's clones really help mitigate the numerical disadvantage." Sasuke said.

"And Sasuke's eyes really help manage the cluster-fuck of pitched battle," Naruto said.

"Kakashi can't leave us here alone," Sasuke continued before frowning, "And Ebisu _is_ a jonin, even if he isn't on Kakashi's level, so he'd be a bigger help here than any of us."

"Besides, Sakura-chan," Naruto interjected, "You basically built the whole minefield, you don't need to be here for the tags and traps to work."

"Fine," Sakura said, "Just remember Rule #1, you don't get to break it over a piddly thing like an invasion or being outnumbered 250 to 1."

"I'll make you an official document with my authorization," Kakashi said, producing a scroll, ink brush, candle, seal, and a strange card, writing a basic message, what logistical information he had gained from the now-dead Suna jounin. Rolling up the scroll, he lit the candle, then used the wax and seal to attach the card to the scroll before handing the finished product to Sakura.

"You need to take it right to the Hokage, you can use my authentication codes to get through the gates quickly and into the Hokage's tower. We'll get Ebisu and handle things here, you leave now, and head back to Konoha as fast as you can."

"Wait," Sakura said, quickly storing the scroll in her inventory before producing several stacks of paper and handing them to her teammates and teacher, "Take my tag stockpile. 125 explosive tags, 250 flash-bangs, a few dozen empty chakra draining tags, a few dozen tasers, some of the basic back-draft explosive tags, some barriers, some spare needle trap tags, 5 of the napalm back-draft bombs, oh, and the chakra storage seals with the chakra I drained from that Suna ninja. If you have time, Sasuke can make some more of the basic tags and charge them with this."

"That's how you managed to make so many tags," Kakashi said, "Now go."

"Hai!" Sakura answered, before rushing off to the northwest, quickly vanishing into the forest.

* * *

_Back at Team 7 base-camp_

"Dammit," Ebisu groaned, "Couldn't the invasion have been sooner? I wouldn't have had to deal with the godforsaken minefield if it had."

* * *

_At the Suna Army Camp_

The invasion task force had made camp several miles inside of River Country, just far enough from the border to not draw attention from the other side. Several small groups of scouts had been deployed to confirm predictions of Konoha's border patrols and establish the best path for the main body to move into enemy territory unobstructed.

Tents had been pitched in small clusters hidden by thickets and copses, and cold rations had been distributed to prevent the need for fires. The majority of Suna's ninja were in a state of anticipatory excitement, waiting for a chance to improve their village's international standing. The camp was quiet, as hidden as a group of hundreds can be, and, for the most part, peaceful.

But everything changed when the Fire nation attacked.


	21. Chapter 21: Inverse Ninja Law

**Did I forget to make one of these Silently Watches style question/disclaimers in the last chapter? If so, I don't own Naruto.**

**Chapter 21: Inverse Ninja Law**

**Alternate Title: ****Lure Your Enemy Onto the Roof, Then Take Away the Ladder.**

* * *

_"Are we there yet?"_

'No Ishi, we are not there yet.'

* * *

_The Suna camp_

The first sign that something was wrong was when five kunai landed in the middle of the thickest clusters, only for large **black** domes to erupt around them. One particularly unlucky and inattentive chuunin was actually trapped by a dome. None of the adjacent nin could hear a thing from their presumably lost comrade. Survival instincts threw the Suna ninja away from the domes, behind cover, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

They were ninja, _anything _that appeared out of nowhere was probably dangerous; they shouldn't touch it, it was a trap and it would kill them.

They didn't have to wait long; After several seconds, the domes erupted, spewing liquid fire haphazardly in every direction. The shock was compounded by the suddenly audible, agonizing coming from the chuunin who had been engulfed in the darkness, now visible and clearly burnt to an almost certainly fatal degree.

The napalm itself caught a few ninja. Mostly peripherally, few suffering more than a splash on an arm or leg, enough to give serious burns and potentially crippling, but few died from the surprising assault, and most injured where ninja who had run from one dome so quickly they had approached a second without realizing until the domes dropped.

Far more troubling for the invading army, however, was the loss of precious supplies. Storage scrolls, rations, tents, maps, coded orders, documents, weapons that aren't Samehada, and myriad supplies necessary to maintain an army's effectiveness on the march can't dodge, after all. One particularly lucky blob of Napalm landed on a small metal chest containing explosive tags, and managed to heat the metal case enough to cause it's insulation to fail, igniting the tags, creating a large fragmentation grenade, utterly destroying a Quartermaster's tent, the shrapnel injuring a few nearby ninja as well.

* * *

_With Team 7_

"Well that was a bust," Sasuke said, "Maybe 20 ninja injured, most superficially, and less than 5 casualties I can see, and we've lost the element of surprise."

"Oh my sweet little genin," Kakashi answered, "You're too focused on the numbers, instead of the big picture of warfare. You need to start thinking strategy instead of tactics."

"What do you mean, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked.

"An army marches on its stomach," Kakashi answered, "Our job isn't to beat this army, it's to slow them down and hinder them as much as possible. We destroyed a good portion of the supplies they brought with them, and shocked them enough to keep them off balance. If we leave now, they'll be hungry and slower on the approach to Konoha, constantly on guard for more attacks until they're too tired to manage an effective assault. We want as many of them injured, hungry, tired, or distracted as possible."

"I'm surprised the traps caught so many of them," Naruto said, "It was really hard to get you or Ebisu to make a mistake and get hit."

"Humans in general, and Ninja in particular, don't work very well in groups." Ebisu explained, "Mobility is very important for battle, and crowds of ninja end up tripping over each other or having to move around their allies. So the more ninja you have in one place, the less effective each ninja will be. It's why ninja work in squads of four."

"Now we just need to draw them across the border to your devious little trap showcase." Kakashi said "So lets give them an enemy they can see. Naruto, send some clones to the edge of the camp, Disguised as masked, Konoha ninja, through a few explosive tags at the untouched clusters of tents, then have them 'retreat' east."

Naruto nodded, spawned several clones, who vanished into the trees, shifting forms as they did so.

"Now," Kakashi said, "Lets see what traps the four of us can set up while we wait."

* * *

_With Sakura_

_"And I~ would walk five hun-dred miles, and I would walk five hun-dred more-"_

'Shut up, Ishi.'

* * *

_In the Suna base camp_

The fires had mostly been contained, and the medics had started triage for the injured. However, despite having raised the alarm, the perimeter guards hadn't yet found a source for the surprise attack, and it almost seemed as though the enemy had already left.

One squad, to the east of camp, noticed several shinobi they couldn't recognize. A second look revealed that the four ninja they had found were all identical, clones then. A third look let the Suna squad leader recognize the ninja in question, Hatake Kakashi, one of the Strongest active shinobi on Konoha's rolls.

Realizing they had been spotted, the Kakashi!clones quickly produced kunai, while one in the back pulling a windmill shuriken, absolutely papered with paper tags. As the Clone-oha shinobi began peppering the guards with thrown weapons, who responded by sounding the alarm. One of the sentries immediately disengaged, to alert the brass of the development, while the other 3 quickly dodged and charged the numerous Hatake.

The Kakashi in the rear of the formation drew back his arm, and _threw_ his windmill shuriken, prompting the Suna sentinels to dive out of it's path, only to belatedly realize that the ordinance was aimed at the center of camp, near some of the few clusters of tents still standing.

"Dammit!" one of the guards had time to curse before an enormous fireball scattered the rest of the camp. Charging the Kakashi that was clearly 'real' judging from his greater ordinance, he screamed in defiance and rage, shooting earth bullets and and metal blades at his opponent, who responded by retreating and dodging, occasionally returning fire with several shuriken.

In his reckless charge, the perimeter guard didn't even notice the remaining clones setting up a barrier until he had already passed through it and fell to the ground, smoking slightly.

By this point, the camp had managed to regroup and send a company to counter the apparent attack on their army, causing Kakashi and his Clones to retreat.

* * *

_In a clearing where Team 7 waits, hidden from view_

Naruto twitched, drawing Kakashi's eye.

"They're coming," Naruto said, having assimilated the memories of a clone that had fallen to a veritable rain of earth bullets, "How do I know that?"

"Shadow Clones, I'll explain later," Kakashi answered his student, "How many?"

"A lot." Naruto said, " More than I could count at a glance."

"Wonderful" Kakashi said, "Who's ready for a merry chase?"

* * *

_With Sakura_

"_So why didn't Kakashi send a summon with this message?"_

_'_Same reason Naruto didn't send a shadow clone, summons don't last longer than a day or so, and any shock or injury would send them back home. This message is too important to gamble on whether Pakkun can run to Kohona fast enough to get there before dispelling and not accidentally go poof.'

_"Ah."_

* * *

_With the Suna Counterattack_

The company of Suna Shinobi were growing frustrated. They had been chasing Kakashi and his clones for almost two hours, and had recently crossed the border into the Land of Fire. Every time one of the Suna Ninja would get close enough to flank a Kakashi, the Konoha ninja clone in question would execute a string of Body Flickers and leave the company trailing him, impotently staring in shock at the relatively major chakra costs of successive, rapid, long distance Body Flickers. Only the flares of chakra such a technique left behind allowed them to track their enemies for this long.

"How the hell is he doing that?" one disheartened ninja asked a comrade.

"I'm more concerned by the fact that he has enough chakra to have a batch of shadow clones at least 4 large, with each clone having enough chakra to do this, and make it look easy." came the answer.

Soon, however, the entirety of the company tasked with catching the, apparently lone, Konoha ninja crossed a barrier they weren't aware of, and were greeted by a springtime shower of needles.

* * *

_In the minefield_

_"_Naruto"

"Yes Kakashi-sensei?"

"Why are your clones all disguised as me?"

"You said to make them all look like masked Konoha ninja."

"I didn't mean me!" The cyclops hissed back angrily.

"Then be more specific next time" Naruto hissed back.

Sasuke, meanwhile, snickered quietly.

"You know, this actually gives me an idea." Ebisu quietly pondered, "I can't imagine being scattered by one ninja will be good for their morale."

* * *

_Several hours run into the interior of fire country_

_"So you see, the moral worth of an action is independent of it's actual consequences, which is contradicted by the varying punishments for crimes based on their success or failure."_

'You're presupposing that legislation and individual human judgement are based in morality and in Kantian ethics specifically, as opposed to Utilitarian ethics, which clearly isn't the case.'

* * *

_In the heart of the bloody wonderland_

It seemed that Kakashi had picked his battlefield, and decided to stop running.

Now, however, there were dozens of shadow clones and dozens of illusory Clones as well. Normally, the illusory clones would be easily identified and ignored. However, it was the middle of the night, and lights were flashing from the various explosions and fire techniques being thrown throughout the woods. Visibility was absolutely terrible, and mistakenly ignoring a shadow clone instead of an illusory clone was tantamount to asking for the final mercy.

Compounding the absolute insanity of this particular battlefield, for every visible clone, there were apparently several more hidden in the shadows, launching needles, utilizing fire or barrier techniques with frankly disgusting efficiency. Several ninja had already fallen to needles that passed **through** illusory clones, hidden until they reached point blank range.

Whenever the Suna ninja first thought they had located some of the hidden clones, they had charged into the trees recklessly, only the run into lightning barriers, explosions, sparking wires, clouds of poisonous gas, or more needles. Most who fell from or fled the trees ended up falling into pitfall traps, holding a variety of traps, from simple spikes to more exotic dangers like storage seals filled with water or oil.

Some of the unluckiest ninja had been trapped in barriers with raging infernos, which roared up in defiance to swallow any ninja who managed to break his barrier from the inside.

It had taken the decimation of the force, and quite a few more injuries for the Suna contingent to learn their lesson, after which they had started to respond to unseen attackers with long range earth and wind jutsu, as appropriate.

The current leader of the Suna ninja desperately attempted to rally his troops and organize some defense against the lone, appropriately legendary, Konoha ninja, only to have his head severed from his body by a Kakashi using his trademarked original techniques, dispelling any doubts in the ranks as to whether they actually were facing the infamous Copy-cat.

Meanwhile, one ninja gave up long range techniques drew a kunai and engaged the nearest clone in a quick close range brawl. At first they seemed evenly matched, at least from the suna ninja's perspective, but his opponent slowly, but steadily began increasing the complexity and precision of his attacks, pushing the Suna ninja onto the defensive and then overwhelming him. Worst of all was the fact that Kakashi's arms seemed longer than they actually were, he would brace himself for a blow or for crossing knives only for the impact to arrive a fraction of a second after it should have. The suna ninja would suspect Genjutsu, were it not for the fact that he had already tried every dispelling technique at his disposal to no avail.

Eventually, in desperation, the unnamed Suna ninja disengaged before charging his opponent, only to have his strike redirected to the side before he was tripped and pushed forward, forcing his kunai into a tree trunk, connecting with a virtually invisible wire. As lightning raced through his body and robbed him of consciousness, the Suna ninja could only remember the whirling red eyes that had been his downfall.

* * *

_From Team 7's perspective_

Ebisu's idea had worked so far. None of the Suna ninja seemed to have realized that most of the clones were disguised clones of other ninja. The low visibility had worked to their advantage in masking the traps that littered the woods in all directions, in homogenizing the shadow clones produced by Kakashi and Naruto with the illusory clones produced by Sasuke and Ebisu, and in making the flash-bang tags effectively crippling attacks instead of mere major annoyances.

Every time Ebisu heard the screams of agony that followed a flash-bang converting the deep shadows of the forest into a light of practically celestial radiance, his heart warmed over, knowing that others shared the misery he had faced the previous month. Even if these ninja did assault Konoha, most would suffer from dampened awareness, either from vision problems or tinnitus. To help them along, Ebisu directed his Kakashi clones to lead or drive enemy ninja into the traps that he had become intimately familiar with.

Kakashi had decided to focus on eliminating any enemy of apparent rank, to better scatter and confuse the forces arrayed against them. Taking care to make liberal use of his Lightning Blade, he could see the despair in the eyes of nearby ninja every time he terminated an acting commander. He didn't actually make any clones, leaving Naruto to flesh out the bulk of their forces, and instead conserved his chakra for the one-hit kill jutsu that had elevated him from 'talented jounin' status to 'nascent legend'.

Naruto, contrary to Kakashi's cold professionalism, was terrified and exhilarated, his clones would bombard the knots of Suna ninja that formed, scattering them in the wind, before engaging the outermost ninja in taijutsu, focusing on dodging attacks more than on any offense. Whenever two of the clone fights would move close together, the clones would switch opponents at random, or send attacks at their brother's opponent from unexpected angles, turning a string of 1-one-1 battles into a true battle-royale, and the panicking suna ninja couldn't even begin to match the teamwork that Naruto's clones had with their brethren. They were cautious to only close on lone ninja, and engaged any groups they found with explosive tags or flashbangs after covering probable escape routes with Capacitor barriers.

And as a result, Naruto had learned a lot about taijutsu and close quarters combat in the hours they had been fighting. Life and death struggles made excellent lessons, as did fighting superior opponents, and Naruto was easily getting more than a hundred lessons at any given time.

Eventually, the eighty Suna ninja still capable of moving well under their own power broke ranks an fled, just before dawn, running back towards the border, in hopes of safety with the larger contingent that had remained behind to reconstruct their camp from the ashy remains of the original napalm assault.

* * *

_Half way to Konoha_

Sakura had been burning chakra to enhance her weary legs and keep moving at her top speed back to konoha, and it was catching up to her, after the third hour she had been forced to begin drawing chakra from her personal storage seal, which she had been stuffing full of any surplus energy she had since leaving Konoha; from her estimates, she would make it to Konoha before emptying her seal.

Probably.

_"Are we there yet?"_

_'_No.'

* * *

_At the Suna base camp._

The returning company had reached their base of operations slightly after dawn, exhausted and afraid, and reported of the legendary ninja who had repulsed their attack single-handed, using clones in ludicrous numbers beside highly powerful barrier and lightning jutsu to match and small army of their ninja.

The leaders of the invasion force carefully considered the reports before deciding on a plan. They would treat the wounded that had returned, and return with their entire force for a massed assault on the ninja that impeded their journey to the village of Konoha. Their approach would be slow and methodical, nothing could interfere with their greater goal.

* * *

_At Team 7's campground, just after dawn, 12 hours after Sakura left for Konoha._

After the retreat of the first company of Suna ninja, Team 7 began cleaning up and preparing for their second wave. Kakashi sent a shadow clone to follow the enemies to their camp and watch their movements.

Ebisu had treated the minor wounds that his comrades had suffered, while Naruto's clones began handling the injured and dead shinobi in the forest.

Any living shinobi was brought to Ebisu for basic field stabilization before being stripped of weapons and supplies, bound, buried to the neck, and drained of chakra. Any dead ninja was stripped of all possessions before being buried in a clearing serving as a makeshift graveyard not far from camp, their names collected from dog-tags and marked with a jutsu on a large rock standing in the center of the clearing and a simple wooden headstone over each grave.

The supplies gathered this way were brought to Sasuke, who separated out weapons to replenish the dwindling supplies that had been used in repelling the pseudo-invasion, and sealed the more mundane items and exotic weapons (such as several basic puppets and a large fan) into several scrolls for Team 7 to go over together in Konoha. He assumed Sakura would be interested in the puppets, and his clan had once used battle fans to great effect in conjunction with fire jutsu; once the logistics were handled, he prepared lunch for the rest of the team before using the chakra drained from their prisoners to produce several of the basic tags he had memorized empirically from Sakura, requisitioning several Naruto clones to place the tags in the minefield to replace the traps that had already been sprung.

When the most immediate preparations had been completed, the four ninja sat down and ate, knowing that this lull would not last forever, and the next wave would likely be far more prepared for their treachery. Hopefully they would be able to bye their kunoichi teammate enough time to make it back to Konoha without sacrificing their own lives.

They discussed what tactics had worked, and what hadn't, what adjustments needed to be made in dealing with people instead of shadow clones, and prepared new tactics for the inevitable return of the Suna army.

* * *

_12 hours later, in the heart of the land of fire._

Sakura was tired, she had run close to 120 miles nonstop, pumping several times her total chakra capacity through her body to maintain a fast pace, and only one fact kept her moving now.

She was close to home.

She could feel it. The trees were stronger, taller, more vibrant, the air was cleaner, and she recognized the landmarks she was passing. Soon she would be done, and could send help for her team, before sleeping for the next week.

_"Are we there yet?"_

'GODDAMMIT ISHI!'

Soon, she saw Konoha's gates in front of her, she produced Kakashi's scroll and the authorization seal he had given her, as she ran, drawing the attention of Izumo and Kotetsu, the two chuunin who almost always sat at the gate.

"I have urgent news for the Hokage!" she almost shouted as she slapped the authorization seal down in front of the sentries, which was quickly validated, before the gate was opened, Izumo escorting her as she ran to the Hokage's tower.

As they ran through the streets, they gained some small amount of attention from the shinobi population, and upon arriving, Izumo quickly engaged the secretary, allowing Sakura to run straight to the Hokage's office.

She slammed the door open, ran up to the desk, before slamming the scroll from her sensei down and almost shouting at the elderly man, "**Hokage-sama, ****Suna has sent an invasion force across the border with river country, the rest of team 7 is engaging in the hopes of delaying them!" **before bending over the table, resting on her hands and gasping for air desperately.

After a beat she noticed the Hokage's grim pale face looking at someone behind her, prompting her to turn and look at what had drawn his attention. What she saw filled her with regret.

There, standing in a robe of white and blue, wearing a hat with the symbol for wind, was the Kazekage.


	22. Chapter 22: Timing is Everything

**Disclaimer: Does the Third Hokage immediately resort to a Suicide Technique when faced with a technique made by one of his own teachers with several manageable counters of stopgaps available to him for both escape and victory? If so, I don't own Naruto.**

**Chapter 22: Timing is everything**

Several thoughts ran through Sakura's head in the instant following her turning around.

_"Fan-fucking-tastic"_

'Did we just-?'

_"Accuse the village hidden in the sand of initiating war with the village of Kohona, with the leader of Sand, an S-rank shinobi, in the room with us?"_

'Yeah, that.'

_"Yes, yes we did."_

'Should we?'

_"Get away from an incipient battle between two S-rank and several A-rank shinobi?"_

'Yeah, that.'

_"Yes, yes we should."_

'How?'

_"I don't know, try talking your way out."_

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama, but I just remembered I forgot to ask anyone to water my stove while I was gone. So I'm going to calmly walk out of you office, shut the door, and then run screaming as fast as possible for something resembling high ground." Sakura addressed her leader .

"Dismissed, Sakura-chan." came the response.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah, no" drawled the Kazekage.

"And who will stop her, you?" said Sarutobi, a hint of aggression in his voice.

"My plan seems to be ruined, so I'll have to step up. The life of the child who made things so complicated will have to serve as a consolation prize." answered the Kazekage.

"Rasa-kun, you may be the Kazekage, and a talented shinobi in your own right, but you are decades to early to face me in my own village. If you surrender, we can use diplomacy, if you fight, they you **will** die here." Said the Hokage, addressing his counterpart.

The foreign kage laughed in response.

"Surrender now, Rasa, I will not give you another chance."

More laughing.

Sarutobi Hiruzen made a discrete hand gesture, prompting two ANBU to materialize in front of him. Two more materialized beside the Kazekage, impaling him from kidney to collarbone.

The Kazekage didn't even flinch.

However, his chuckling halted as he spun, yanking the swords still in his chest from the hands of the ANBU who wielded them, produced a kunai from his sleeve, and threw it into the wall not an inch in front of Sakura's nose, stopping her attempt to sneak out while older ninja were...preoccupied.

Though shocked at the Kazakeage's nonchalance over impalement, Hiruzen Sarutobi was too professional to let an opportunity go to waste. As the Kazekage spun, he leapt forward, grabbing him and defenestration him just after the kunai had begun its flight.

* * *

_In front of the Hokage's tower_

Danzo Shimura was irritated. He'd been enjoying a cup of tea when one of his agents informed him that the female teammate of the Vessel and the Spare had run into town several days early. Alone, and in something of a panic, she had been escorted in the direction of the Hokage's tower. No doubt something had happened, and Hiruzen was about to face the backlash of one of his foolish schemes.

Knowing that his input would be 'helpful' at some point, Danzo had downed his cup. Then, he headed to the seat of Konoha's government with as much speed as he could without appearing to be rushing.

He was about to open the main door to the tower when-

*CRASH*

He looked up, and saw a robed figure tumbling through the air before recovering and touched down in the street not 10 meters away from him.

The robed figure wearing a **very** recognizable hat.

'Huh,' thought the old warhawk, 'It seems as though Hiruzen has finally taken my advice about approaching foreign policy more aggressively.'

* * *

As the Hokage leapt after the Kazekage, Sakura was in inner turmoil.

'HolyCrapHolyCrapHolyCrapHolyCrapHolyCrapHolyCrapHolyCrap'

**_"SHUT UP!"_**

Sakura froze.

_"Your Hokage is fighting a wannabe immortal, now calm the FUCK down and start think of ways to help."_

'But how can I possibly hel-'

_"HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH AN IMMORTAL!"_ Ishi more shouted then asked.

'Um' Sakura calmly thought as a tangible problem distracted her, 'Bypass their immortality, Bypass the means of their immortality, or Trap them'

_"Good, now which of those options is available to us?'_

'Well we don't know how he's immortal, so we can only trap him.'

_"Good, now how?"_

'Fuuinjutsu'

_"That's my girl, now hurry up and end this fight so we can send some help to our teammates. And remember-'_

'Immortal S-rank shinobi are not grounds for breaking Rule #1.' Sakura thought, no longer panicking, as she headed down the stairs to the basement, where the Hokage's Tower kept several tanks and crates of supplies for use in times of siege or invasion.

* * *

_Out on the street_

Hiruzen Sarutobi stood several meters away from his Suna counterpart, waiting for an opening while his ANBU worked to evacuate the area of civilians. Before jumping down, he had stripped himself of his robes, leaving his personal armor. Desperately, he examined his foe, trying to find some hint of what was happening.

Hoping to bait his foe into letting something slipas well as stall for time, the Hokage called out: "Why have you done this? What could possibly justify a sudden war between allies? What could Suna possibly gain from another destructive war?"

"Suna?" came the answer "Suna is just another pawn in my scheme, to be used and discarded for my ambition. It doesn't matter what Suna stands to gain so much as what you stand to lose."

"You-" Hiruzen choked out in realization, "You're not Rasa."

"Oh, are you just now realizing that?" the impostor wearing the Kazekage's robes said, his amusement clearly evident as his voice shifted into a more sinister timbre, "Has it really been so long that you don't recognize me?"

"Orochimaru" hissed the Hokage, "Is your sadism so great that you not only betray your village, but drive it's allies to destruction as well?"

"Yes," the now identified Orochimaru answered, "Yes it is. Though to be honest it was more for the poetic irony than any real malice I have against Suna, but that whole plan is ruined now, so I'll have to settle for killing you before burning the village to ash. And you know how I hate grunt work."

"Are you truly so conceited that you believe you can defeat me by yourself?" The Hokage said incredulously, "I may be old, but not yet so old that I can't handle one of your tantrums, Orochimaru."

"Normally, I'd agree with you," was the surprising response, "For all my work and training, I wouldn't be able to match you without, at minimum, regaining access to the Senjutsu that I lost when I first changed bodies. However," he said with a smile, "I have a brand new undefeatable body that I think could match even your prowess, old man."

"If you honestly believe that," shot back the Hokage, "you've lost even more of your tenuous grasp on reality then you had when we last fought."

* * *

_In the basement of the Hokage's tower_

Sakura quickly opened a box labeled "Medical Supplies", pulled out a small pill, swallowing it dry, before turning to a crate of stationary and office supplies and dragging it to the boiler room.

* * *

_Back with the fight_

'I must be getting slow' thought Hiruzen Sarutobi, 'Every punch I throw, he dodges effortlessly. Well, If Taijutsu isn't going to work...'

The Hokage lept back before running through five handseals, biting his thumb and shouting "SUMMONING TECHNIQUE". When the smoke cleared, the elderly ninja stood next to his long time ally, the Monkey King Enma.

"Hiruzen, my old friend," said the monkey, "Has a war started since we last spoke?"

"That's not the Kazekage," answered the man from the monkey clan, "My traitorous student has decided to come home and face judgement."

"If there's a better time for us to fight together again," Enma said, "I can't think of it. Transform!"

"Oh" Orochimaru said, "Have you realized the futility of Taijutsu and decided to move on to Kenjutsu? Well then I fell I must oblige an old man's folly," before coughing up a katana, ripping a hole in the mask he had yet to remove. "What better to face the unbreakable adamantine staff than the unstoppable Grass-cutter long-sword."

What followed was a quick, furious flurry of pristine bojutsu and kenjutsu, at a speed that left even the nearby ANBU in shock, but again, in mundane combat, the traitor seemed just a little too fast for his teacher, casually blocking or dodging blows with disturbing ease. Realizing that he would not win a battle of attrition, the Hokage decided to change the rules of engagement again.

"Extend!" shouted the Hokage, his staff obeying his command as he charged his student, diverting his attack at the last second into the ground and vaulting into the air above Orochimaru.

"Expand!" The end of the bo staff grew until it resembled an enormous hammer more than a staff, a comparison that became all the more appropriate as the elderly Hokage brought his hands down in an attempt to crush Orochimaru, only to be blocked, though the force of his blow was enough to drive his student into the ground to his ankles.

The attack was not done though, as Enma's head and torso sprouted from the end of the adamantine staff, screeching ferally as he clawed out at Orochimaru, almost ripping the traitor's arms from his body.

Ignoring the crippling wound, Orochimaru took his left hand and grabbed the aged monkey by the throat, only for his eyes to widen as the Hokage sent a surge of chakra to his partner, catalyzing a burst of fire from Enma's maw, engulfing the traitorous ninja.

* * *

_Across the street_

Danzo had been watching his old 'friend''s battle with surprising interest. It had been quite clear from the beginning that the man wearing the Kazekage's robes and hat was not Rasa Sabaku, but the elderly ninja hadn't quite narrowed down the true identity of the impostor, which was worrying in itself; the number of ninja who could fight on the level of the Hiruzen Sarutobi was astonishingly small.

Fortunately, as his old teammate got serious, the enemy nin was engulfed in flames, and as the smoke cleared, the face of their enemy was finally revealed.

It was a face that Danzo was intimately familiar with. A face with long, straight black hair, and unique eyes.

A face that was unforgettable to all who saw it.

A face that was intimately connected with betrayal both to the village as a whole, and to Danzo Shimura personally.

One of the few faces that could evoke an emotional response from Danzo.

Unable to control himself, Danzo shouted the name and mistake that had haunted him for so long.

**"MADARA!"**

* * *

Hiruzen vaulted off of his opponent's block, as Enma's adamantine form shrank to a more manageable size, and carefully scanned his errant student for signs of damage.

As the ashen, burnt face of Konoha's greatest traitor, worn by its second greatest traitor, slowly healed to become merely ashen, Hiruzen grasped the basics of what his student had done.

Using the impure world ressurection technique to revive Uchiha Madara and enslave his mind before taking his construct body as his own with his Body switching technique, Orochimaru had managed to obtain a body that not only had the Sharingan, but also would heal from any damage.

**"MADARA!"**

At this point, a blade of wind hit Orochimadara from the side, cutting from one elbow to the other, bisecting his torso neatly, dropping his body in four pieces to the ground.

The head and torso slowly began regenerating while the forearms, and lower body crumbled into ash.

Hiruzen glanced over at his longtime friend and political opponent Danzo, surprised at the sheer malice present on his normally placid face, but understanding that the face with the such history, both national and personal, would inevitably inspire superlative emotions, even in someone as reserved as Danzo. Hopefully the instinctive attack had been enough to let the elderly ninja to regain his composure so he could approach this battle with the appropriate gravitas. An immortal foe with no regard for the life of his enemies, a plethora of dangerous and deadly jutsu, and a bloodline that allowed him to ignore many of the more subtle means of directing a battle.

By now, his ANBU were trying evacuating the village, starting near the tower and working their way out through the village, but they wouldn't have accomplished anything in the few minutes the battle had taken so far.

Realizing what he had to do, in an instant, his adamantine bo staff decreased in radius until it resembled a javelin, with which he impaled the still regenerating torso of his errant student, before turning, and launching hiss weapon and student into the air, watching as Enma shifted back into his monkey form and grappling the snake.

Glancing at his old compatriot, the third Hokage flipped through several handseals, while Danzo realized his putative leader's intent, and flipped through several different handseals, until Sarutobi ended with a Dragon seal and Danzo ended with a Dog seal, and both elderly nin called out their jutsu.

"**PRESSURE SPHERE!**" shouted Danzo, as he released the antithesis of his personal Vacuum techniques

"**GREAT BREAKTHROUGH!**" cried Hiruzen, released one of the more common wind techniques.

The two wind techniques, a mighty wind and a huge bubble of highly pressurized gas synergized well, intercepting Orochimaru and Enma in the air. On contact with a solid object, the bubble of chakra containing the highly pressurized air popped, venting along the path of least resistance: in line with the wind created by the great breakthrough technique.

The synergy resulted in a great deal of force, blowing Orochimaru and Enma away from the center of Konoha, and despite Orochimaru's attempts to land or counter the collaborative technique, Enma, as a master of grappling and acrobatics, was able to keep the two enemies on course, until they clipped the top of Konoha's wall and rolled over and out of the village proper.

It was not for nothing that Enma was known as the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. While he lacked the immense bulk of other summons, his skills in grappling were unequaled, and mastery of a plethora of obscure and esoteric skills (such as his transformation abilities) gave him more flexibility than many of his counterparts with other summon families.

The Third Hokage took advantage of the lull in combat to flicker to the nearest ANBU member, several blocks away, and give several orders. Mobilizing his ninja, the Hokage gave two tasks: evacuate the outer fringes of the village, which would be drawn into conflict if Orochimaru made it back inside the wall, and find his jounin commander and his sole loyal student to organize a secondary defense while he _disciplined_ the snake who had decided to come home for a visit.

Immediately after conveying his orders, Hiruzen turned to chase his errant student, only to find his long time friend, Danzo, was already racing towards the village wall.

Burning chakra to catch up, Hiruzen Sarutobi called out to his compatriot.

"It's rare to see something anger you so badly, Danzo."

"Your _student_ has resurrected Konoha's greatest traitor to get his hands on one of the strongest bloodlines in history, as well as an immortal body. **AND**, just to insult us, he used one of Tobirama-sensei's jutsu to do it. I don't know how you caught him with his pants down, but if he masters his new body, then Konoha will burn, even if we somehow manage to defeat him. No matter what else happens, he **cannot** be allowed to survive," said Danzo.

"I don't suppose you remember enough of Tobirama's fuuinjutsu to dispel his body?" Hiruzen asked glumly.

"No, but I know several seals that may bind him, for a time. But we will need to pin him down for them to take root." came the reply, "They may buy us enough time to craft a more _permanent_ solution."

"A desperate battle with little hope of success, with the village as a whole at stake," Hiruzen said, "Just like old times?"

"Just like old times." Danzo replied.

* * *

**AN: Man, this chapter did not want to be written, and I had hoped to have it contain the entirety of the fight between the Third, Danzo, and Orochimadara.**

**I didn't finish it, but I just had to give you guys something. Hope you enjoy the setup. Lets see if Age and Treachery can beat slightly less Age and Treachery.**


	23. Chapter 23: Fight!

**I'm back, b*tches**

**This chapter took forever to write, there's just so many ways I could have seen it ending that I couldn't really pick one. A fight between Sarutobi, Danzo, and Orochimaru in an immortal Madara's body? Meanwhile, Sakura's hiding in a basement trying to fix everything with fuuinjutsu after having run for something halfway across the country, and everyone else is getting ready for the 3rd stage of the Chuunin exams, which are scheduled to start tomorrow. **

**Eventually I prayed to the Dice Gods and rolled some dice to decide how to end the whole thing, this is what I came up with.**

**Disclaimer: I'm not going to even try to think up a minorly humorous disclaimer, I don't own Naruto, and I don't own any other intellectual property franchise that gets a shout-out in this fanfic. Enjoy**

* * *

**Chapter 23: Orochimadara Battle**

Orochimaru was having a profoundly disappointing day.

He had spent months arranging a joint invasion of his home and everything had fallen apart in the span of 20 minutes. Apparently a random genin team had taken an unlisted mission on a random portion of the Fire country border and happened to stumble upon the regiment of Suna shinobi that had been sent to destroy Konoha, and a **regiment** of ninja were apparently not enough to stop a lone genin girl from running back to the village and spreading the word. Why was it that every ninja associated with an actual village lacked even basic competency. Now he'd been thrown out of the village, literally, and had an overgrown monkey throwing shit at him.

**"Earth Style: Exploding Excrement**"

Sure, he could dodge no problem, as his new sharingan was absolutely magnificent, (now he just had to figure out how to regain his senjutsu and no one would be able to stop him), but it was the principle of the thing. Ninja battles should be dignified.

Oh look, Sarutobi-sensei and..._Danzo_?_ of all people_...were finally here, maybe he'd be able to steal some of the professors library of techniques.

**"Bringer of Darkness" **Sarutobi called out, plunging the world into perfect darkness

Of course.

Orochimaru had, as part of his training with the snakes and personal experiments, obtained and mastered the tremor sense and heat sense that so many snakes had, so fighting blind was barely an inconvenience. But if his Sharingan couldn't see anything, then he wouldn't be able to copy any jutsu. Oh well, at least he could take his time slowly **breaking** his old mentor and their mutual frienemy, Danzo. Hell, with an immortal body he could probably destroy Konoha personally, and while it wouldn't have the poetic irony of seeing the Leaf burned to ash by their own allies, it would have his personal touch.

After all, if you wanted something done right.

**"Water Style: Flash Flood"** came Sarutobi-sensei's voice.

"**Earth Stlye: Mud Slide**" answered Danzo.

"**Collaboration Technique: Slippery Slurry**" the called out in unison as Orochimaru felt the earth around him churn into a frothy mud, dulling his tremor sense and ruining his sandals.

He took a taijutsu stance, only for his front foot to slip on the mud, leaving him open for an instant, which his old teacher capitalized on instantly.

* * *

_In the basement of the Hokage's tower_

_"_What are you doing" asked an ANBU agent wearing a sparrow mask, almost surprising the lone genin surrounded by stray papers and opened supply crates.

"Making a seal" came Sakura's gruff answer

"This is a restricted area"

"Yes, yes is is."

Pausing a moment at the surreal nature of a genin dismissing a member of the villages elite, black ops unit in an off limits storeroom of the village's main administrative building, during a spontaneous evacutaion of the village, Sparrow quickly clarified, "Why are you hear, making a seal, right now?"

"Because the Hokage is fighting a would-be immortal Kazekage, Suna is invading, my team is fighting off an army at the border, I haven't slept in 48 hours, am only moving on Chakra and soldier pills, and the sooner someone deals with **the damn S-rank ninja attacking our Ve_ner_ab_le_ Hokage, the sooner my team gets SOME DAMN BACKUP AND I CAN PASS OUT!"**

'Oh, so that's why everyone is mobilizing.' thought Sparrow calmly before flickering away to inform his squad leader. 'Maybe we can get some Inuzuka to lead a task force...'

* * *

_Back with the Zombie_

This was getting a little annoying. Orochimaru was sure he had hit Danzo in a lethal area at least 4 times now, each time he had gotten a kunai through his ey-_*shink*_

5 times now.

Also he had learned an important lesson, even if he was immortal, getting lobotomized would still cause him to freeze up for several seconds, allowing Sarutobi to use one of dozens of tricks to try to apprehend him.

Chakra Strings, burying him, the Temporary Paralysis technique, some exotic shape manipulation that formed manacles, and now he was being dismembered and burned.

None of the monkey's tricks would stall him for long, but it was getting annoying having to regenerate his...most of him.

Between the slippery mud (which didn't seem to affect his opponents at all), lack of sight, three opponents, and his seeming inability to land a kill shot, this was getting rather ridiculous. A battle of attrition was not what he envisioned as the final confrontation with his teacher.

Orochimaru quickly activated the Maniac Contortionist technique, his arms lengthening and snaking out, grabbing one of his opponents, _Danzo_ he realized, by the chin and neck, before _twisting_.

There, now he new Danzo was dea-_*shink*_

_'And now Sarutobi-sensei is the one stabbing me in the eye.'_

As his brain regenerated, Orochimaru felt several hands tap him on his major joints. Pivoting on one leg, he snap-kicked his opponent, only to get a face full of Enma's paws gouging out his eyes. His counter knife-hand at the Great Sage felt it was moving through molasses, until he couldn't move his arm at all. Trying to leap away, Orochimaru found he couldn't move anything below his neck.

'_A binding seal? And a fairly powerful one at that.'_

"Fucking Fuinjutsu" Orochimaru muttered, before dislocating his jaw and using a jutsu he had honestly expected to never have to use again: shedding his skin. An unfettered body leapt from his former mouth, escaping the seal that had trapped him.

"And I'm done" Orochimaru said, before quickly forming 5 hand seals and shouting out, "**Summoning Technique**".

* * *

_At the Hokage tower_

Sakura stared at the compiling seal with baited breath. The various characters and lines glowing, shifting, and shrinking into their completed form.

This was the third time she had tried compiling the seal, and she was certain she had gotten the syntax right this time;

The characters continued to shrink until the reached the final design,(several Kanji in a diamond, in a circle), before fading to black.

'Did it work?'

_"Holy crap, you actually did it."_

'What's that supposed to mean, you asshole?'

_"It's not my fault if you don't do your best work when rushed"_

'Whatever', Sakura thought as she folded the paper bearing her new seal into the recognizable tag form, before packing quickly stowing her supplies and leaving the boiler room.

She quickly made her way through a deserted Hokage tower to the street level exit, hoping to track down her Hokage, to pass on her weapon, only to find the street empty and quiet.

_"Oh no, we'll never find them now, how unfortunate that we will be unable to throw ourselves between S-rank ninja in gloriu-SWORD"_

'What?' Sakura thought inquisitively.

_"Sword, over there, grab it, now"_

'Seriously?' Sakura thought to Ishi as she walked over to the blade that someone had driven by its blade into the earth, 'This rusty old thing?'

_"The quality of the blade isn't what matters," _Ishi answered before explaining his protagonistic logic, _"What matters is that there's no one here to notice or stop you taking it."_

'You're not going to let this go.'

_"Nope"_

Sakura sighed and reached for the handle, bracing herself to pull it out of the earth, only for the ground to part before the rusty blade like grass.

_'_Huh, surprisingly sharp for a rusty old piece of crap' Sakura thought as she quickly placed the katana in her inventory. 'Now how can I find the Hokage and see if he needs my help?'

_"Look for clues?"_

'The hell do you mean clues? They could be anywhere, how am I supposed to track down kage level ninja? Hints aren't going to just appear out of nowhere.'

Sakura waited for several seconds

_"You're waiting for a fireball or some other massive jutsu to appear, aren't you?"_

'No,' Sakura denied frantically before calmly examining the ground around her. 'Judging from the footprints, however, I'd guess that the battle moved...'

She paced around for several seconds, noting the scorch marks, several large divets, and a wall that had been cut in two by something impossibly sharp.

'That way.' Sakura faced the Hokage Monument, up the street

_"Great, lets go look there."_

Their planning was immediately interrupted by a sibilant roar coming from behind them.

Sakura quickly turned around, and climbed the side of the Hokage tower, only to see a titanic purple serpent outside of the walls of the village growing from a cloud of inky darkness, in the diametrically opposite direction of the Hokage Monument.

_"Dammit, Murphy, you just had to let us know where the killing is happening."_

'Shut up, Ishi, we've got to go help the Hokage.'

_"I'm sure he'll be fine, no need for us to get involved, we should probably head to the shelters, maybe bug the Jonin Commander to send help to team 7. We don't have to go over there and get between the giant snake and its meal, do we?"_

'Put your game face on, because this is happening.'

_"Maybe we should go check the seal design a few more time. Just because there are no syntax errors, doesn't mean there isn't a logic error somewhere."_

'Ishi.' Sakura _said_ flatly.

_"Goddammit."_

* * *

_Outside of the Village_

_"_As much fun as it would be to let you simply throw jutsu at me until you both died of chakra exhaustion," Orochimaru called down into the orb of darkness that Sarutobi and Danzo were still hiding in, "If you won't even have the decency to let me copy those jutsu, then I'm going to take my toys somewhere else. Manda, attack the village."

"**Who do you think you are?**" the giant snake roared at his summoner, "**Summoner or not, you do not command me. I refuse to do anything until you present me with at least three dozen sacrifices in apology for your impertinence.**"

"Oh, of course, I beg your pardon Manda-sama." Orochimaru apologies as he looked down to meet eyes of the kaiju snake he was currently standing on, "I complete forgot my place, and I hope I can make it up to you." His sharingan eyes twirled as he layered a web of illusions around the snake, seizing control of the summon with a mere token of effort.

At this moment, several shuriken, wreathed in wind chakra expanding their blades from several centimeters to a meter and a half, flew from the darkness and curved through the air, converging on Orochimaru, who negligently twisted out of the way of the first two, before bending back at the knees until his back was parallel to the top of Manda's head allowing the rest to fly harmlessly over him, which extending his arms to snatch two shuriken that had been aimed at Manda's eyes rather than at him.

Orochimaru calmly directed Manda to begin slithering towards the village wall, before turning his giant head and spitting enormous jets of venom into the darkness. Several Anbu on the village wall fired long range jutsu, primarily fireballs or normal weapons with exploding tags, all of which were splashed off the thick scales of the king of serpents, but the gesture was enough to draw the attention of Orochimaru back to the wall. He quickly had Manda send several spurts of acid towards the ninja who defended their village while coiling up his body.

Manda sprang forward, his body twisting back and forth in the air in a gruesome parody of his normal ground based motion. However, his glide was intercept by a missile from the dark cloud that still remained from Sarutobi's jutsu. Orochimaru ignored the weapon, as normal weapons would never be capable of harming his newest ally-turned-minion. Even though this particular weapon appeared to be empowered by fire-nature chakra, it lacked the penetrating power to pierce Manda's scales. Harming Manda would require a legendary weapon, such as the Kusanagi, which Orochimaru realized he would have to find in Konoha after he was finished burning the village to ash.

The missile, a bo staff he noticed idly, seemed to be unaware of the thickness of Manda's hide, however, as it cleanly pierce the giant snake mid flight at the base of his neck, embedding itself in his skull, cauterizing the perfectly circular wound around itself before disappearing from view.

Orochimaru looked back towards the inky blackness that he knew hid his teacher in shock, just as the cloud began to recede, revealing Sarutobi and Danzo, holding their hands in the tiger and dragon seals respectively. But where was Enma?

Orochimaru turned around just in time to catch Enma's claw, crackling with restrained lightning, to the face. Enma grabbed Orochimaru by his orbits, pushing them both off of the recently deceased Manda into open air. For the second time that day, Orochimaru found himself in free fall, being grappled by the Monkey King. This time however, as Enma didn't have to direct their flight, the grappling was far more fierce, prompting Orochimaru to shed his skin to escape before landing several meters from the Enma.

* * *

_Back at the wall._

Sakura had been stopped by several ANBU at the wall, who refused to let a lone genin directly enter a battle that already involved two boss-level summons and 3 S-rank ninjutsu specialist.

_"See Sakura? They don't need your help, you should just stay here where its safe."_

Sakura quickly flickered down the wall to avoid one of Manda's acid attacks before responding, 'Safe? With the way they're going at it I doubt anyone in the village is safe. I wonder who's fighting alongside the Hokage though.'

Together, Sakura and Ishi watched as Manda coiled his great length.

_"Oh god, tell me he isn't going to-"_

"SCATTER" Sakura shouted to the surrounding ninja, sprinting down the wall to avoid the giant snake's spring powered charge.

As the Serpent left the ground, the defending force of Konoha ninja followed the genin's advice and flickered up and down the wall, missing the attack that felled the would-be dragon and the bundle that fell from his corpse mid flight. They did not miss, however, the earthshaking collision between Manda's nose and the village wall. Seals lit up on the wall, reinforcing its strength before part of the wall gave way. The Impact was enshrouded in dust and smoke.

When it cleared, there was a "u" shaped hole in the wall, extending from the top of the wall nearly down to its base.

_"He did. I can't believe he did that."_

Sakura coughed violently as she struggled to regain her equilibrium. Noting the chaos caused by the attack and subsequent disappearance of the giant serpent, she leapt from the wall and began making her way out into the forest, trying to track down the animal like shrieks that she assumed were coming from the battle.

_"This is an absolutely terrible idea."_

* * *

_In the forest_

Orochimaru was really losing his patience with the filthy monkey that was currently swinging him around by the skull. Fortunately Manda wasn't his only summon. He began flipping through hand-seals, finishing his jutsu just as Enma finally threw him towards the approaching chakras of Sarutobi-sensei and Danzo.

"**Formation of Ten Thousand Serpents,**" shouted Orochimaru, just before thousands of small, extremely venomous snakes began spewing from his mouth wildly as he cartwheeled through the air. Sarutobi and Danzo were met by a veritable flood of serpents as they reacquired their target.

Sarutobi immediately surrounded himself in white flames, incinerating all vipers that approached him. Danzo, contrarily was engulfed by the swarm for two seconds, raising Orochimaru's hopes until a burst of wind diced all snakes within 10 meters of Danzo, who promptly retreated from the flood before responding with his own summons.

An massive, dark orange tapir appeared beneath Danzo, and promptly turned around, breathing in deeply, an action mirrored by Danzo. The powerful vacuum pulled at the swarm, as the myriad tiny snakes flew from the ground towards Danzo's summon, while Sarutobi quickly utilized an earth technique to hide underground.

Suddenly, the tapir forcefully exhaled, while danzo channeled his breath into a series of vacuum blades, which propagated throughout the resulting gales, quickly slicing through the swarm until no snake remained whole. One snake in particular, Orochimaru noticed, was cut cleanly just below the neck and landed at the feet of his summoner. Orochimaru quickly used an earth technique to launch the dying snake at Danzo, who, foolishly, ignored the flying head, only for it hit him on the leg. It reflextively bit down on the warm target, it's dying spasms injecting its deadly venom into Danzo.

Who promptly vanished like a mirage.

'Clones?' Orochimaru thought, as he turned and leaned to avoid the wind blades Danzo was channeling through two kunai, only for Sarutobi to capitalize on his focus to emerge from the ground with his adamantine staff aimed like a spear directly at his lower back. The impact drove orochimaru several inches into the air, just in time to have his face removed by Danzo's second slice.

Orochimaru landed in a heap, ash gathering to reform his hear, utterly furious. Nothing he did seemed to hurt either of his opponents, and they ALWAYS hit him in the eye. His felt his anger heat up, his passion rising for the first time in years. His eyes whirled as blue flames erupted around him and a name came to his lips.

**"Susanoo!****"**

A skeletal figure, holding a katana with one of its unnaturally long and fluid arms, while the other slid around and crushed Danzo, who again vanished after the hit landed.

"Clones won't save you, Danzo." Orochimaru taunted as he reveled in the ability he had manifested, finally experiencing the power of the Dojutsu he had defiled the line between life and death to steal. "You don't have the chakra to keep wasting on these substitutions and swaps. I'm surprised you're still alive at this point."

Turning to his former teacher, Orochimaru directed his projection to swing its sword. With speed that should not be available to anything its size, the warrior of blue flame attempted to shorten Sarutobi by a head, only for the strike to be deflected up by the adamantine staff, which refused to bend or break even when faced with an almost mythical entity like Susanoo.

Orochimaru pressed the attack, safe from any more eye-gouges behind walls of living chakra, and Susanoo engaged Sarutobi and Enma in a lightning fast exchange of metal. Slowly, the giant pushed back the elderly Hokage, until a vacuum ball flew from the trees behind Orochimaru, the combination of the pressure gradient and lack of oxygen extinguishing and shattering the chakra construct. Sarutobi instantly caught his second wind and quickly crushed Orochimaru's knees with two quick strikes before pivoting and hitting the rogue Sannin under the chin, launching his slack form towards Danzo's hiding place with a sickening crack.

As soon as he landed in a fork of branches, the snake was beset by Danzo, and was forced to fight off supernaturally sharp blades of wind-chakra with his bared hands. He expected Sarutobi to have joined the brutal short ranged fighting. When the monkey failed to appear for several minutes of intense combat, Orochimaru stretched out his senses for only to be surprised by a weak chakra signature approach the battleground, but his surprise was quickly crushed as he felt an otherworldly presence begin to gather around his old mentor.

He knew this presence. Konoha ninja older than 13 knew this presence, and it meant that he absolutely didn't have time to waste, as Sarutobi might have finally stumbled upon something that could stop him.

Even though Madara had tamed the Kyuubi, Orochimaru had no desire to test his might against a seal created by the Shinigami, especially as his current body was a result of acting against the flow of mortality.

He focused on Danzo, quickly wreathing his hands in chakra to add the sharpness of the finest steel to his strikes, Orochimaru feinted with his right hand while using the Maniac Contortionist technique to stretch his left arm down and around Danzo, striking at his covered right eye from his blind spot, pulping the eye beneath and penetrating to the brain, even as Danzo separated his right arm at the elbow with one kunai while stabbing him through the eye, _again_, with his right hand, which Orochimaru only now noticed was unnaturally pale.

Danzo did not vanish this time.

But, as Danzo fell dead onto Orochimaru, who was again regrowing his brain and eye, the pair fell from the trees they were fighting in and landed in a tangle heap on the ground.

* * *

Sarutobi paused as he felt his longtime comrade fade. It was almost surreal for a man who had survived such impossible odds in wartime and peacetime alike, who had been a staple of Sarutobi's life for decades, to be dead. The shock was enough to spot Sarutobi just before he finished gathering his chakra to form the reaper death seal.

He stared at the pair, lying twenty or so meters away, waiting for a Danzo to finish a Substitution or reveal a clone, or some forbidden technique to reverse death itself, only for the pair to remain unmoving for several seconds.

His wait was met with a blip of familiar chakra and four characters leaking off the danzo's body.

* * *

Sakura had followed the ape-like shrieks, the roaring wind, the strange blue light, and could finally see the Hokage. She stood in a tree behind him, following his eyes to a pair of motionless bodies on the other side of the psuedo-clearing that had formed in the wake of high-class jutsu wrecking the forest.

As she watched, the characters for Greater and Lesser Yin and Yang rose into the air from the pile of bodies, forming a square several meters from the bodies that she could not recognize.

As she watched, though she did not understand what was happening, Danzo's final contingency activated. He had burned through all of his uses of the Izanagi during the fight, and after reversing his death for the 10th time and having Shisui's eye destroyed by Orochimaru's attack, finally met a true death.

The characters grew in all directions, forming a black sphere around the bodies, one of which had recovered enough to struggle and untangle himself from the other body, destperately trying to escape the rapidly closing sphere, only to find himself trapped by the Reverse Four Symbols Seal.

Once the sphere was solid, the void sucked everything contained by it into Danzo's corpse, held captive by a seal every bit as strong as the one that held the kyuubi at bay, without the weaknesses intended to allow bijuu and jinchurikii chakra to merge.

When the void cleared, only one body remained lying on the ground of the clearing, at the bottom of a perfectly spherical hollow in the earth and trees surrounding him.

Danzo Shimura died in defense of his village; he would wear a smile forevermore.

_"hehehe...haha...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"_

* * *

**AN: I rolled 2d100, and got 100 on both dice. This is what critical success looks like and I hope you liked it. **

**Next chapter shouldn't take as long as this one to complete, it'll handle what the rest of team 7 is doing while this is happening.**

**Additionally regarding snakes: **

**1\. ****Most snakes have a tremorsense and heatsense, so Orochimaru does too. **

**2\. ****If you cut off a snake's body, the head will stay alive for a minute or so (depending on the species), and is perfectly capable of biting and injecting venom before it dies. **

**3\. ****There is a snake that can basically fly. When you stop screaming in horror, google "Chrysopelea", when you find a video or gif depicting it in the air, picture Manda doing the exact same thin. That's what he was doing before a collaboration Wind-Fire technique empowered staff-form Enma landed a head-shot.**

**Thank you for reading, leave a review with any questions of comments; I feed off your attention, and tune in later to find out how many Konoha ninja it takes to hold back an invasion. **


	24. Chapter 24: Love can Bloom

**Time Braid is one my favorite fanfic depictions of Sakura, as well as one of my favorite time loop fics. It's not for everyone, but there are so few good fics about Sakura, and so few time loop fics that actually ever manage to convey real danger to the protagonist who resets after dying.**

**If this chapter was delayed by server issues, then I don't own Naruto**

**The next chapter is here****, with the beginning of what happened with Team 7 while reinforcements were on their way.**

* * *

**Chapter 24: Love can Bloom**

The first wave of Suna shinobi had broken and retreated shortly before dawn. Leaving Team 7 to patch the holes in their 'minefield' and recover what strength they could while waiting to see if the invading army would try their luck again. By noon, they had done as much as was possible to reinforce their traps, and it had become clear that if Suna was going to try again, it wouldn't be until that night.

"We've already stalled enough for Sakura to safely make her way home." Ebisu said as he sat down next to Kakashi, "Is there a reason we can't just retreat ourselves, and leave a few dozen clones to cover us?"

"Yes." came Kakashi's answer.

The three flesh and blood ninja currently resting around their campsite looked at their leader expectantly for several seconds.

"And it would be?" ventured Ebisu eventually.

Kakashi turned sighed before answering, "Without our actual presence here, any clone army we could establish would run out with ludicrous speed, and the traps aren't anywhere near as effective without ninja to keep pressure on the enemy and bait them into the various killzones. If we just up and left, the enemy would take all of an hour or two to force their way through the traps, using wide area jutsu and puppets to clear swathes of forest of traps. They have the numbers for that kind of straightforward tactic, but our presence here prevents that. If they burn chakra on inefficient sacrificial tactics like that, they're easy prey, but only if we're here to capitalize on it."

"And this is the best chance we have to stop them getting to the village." Naruto chimed in, "We've got every advantage except numbers here, and we'd lose most of them once they're past the minefield. A weakened enemy getting to the village is worse than no enemy getting there. We already handled, like, 200 ninja, we can handle the rest."

"Congrats to us," Sasuke said sourly as he raised a drink in a mock toast, "It took all three of us and a month of preparation to match a kill-count Sakura achieved on our first mission out of the village by **talking** to an army."

"Wait," Ebisu said, "What?"

* * *

_In the forest outside of Konoha_

The Third Hokage gave a moment of silence for his fallen comrade, recognizing the contingency seal and its work, before turning to the genin who had made her way to the battlefield.

"What are you doing here, Sakura?" he asked dissaprovingly.

"I, uh," Sakura stammered, "thought I could help?"

"The sentiment is admirable, but if you had arrived before the end of the battle, you would have been nothing more than a liability." the old man responded.

_"Told you" _came a smug thought

'Shut up, Ishi' Sakura answered before addressing the Hokage, "Can we get some help sent to my team, now?"

"**I **will arrange for several Inuzuka to lead a task force to rescue your team," Sarutobi said in a tone that would brook no argument, "**You** are going to the hospital, where you will debrief the Jonin Commander on the situation while being checked for injuries. Then, you will go home and **sleep**."

"Hai, Hokage-sama." Sakura said meekly.

* * *

_Back at the border_

The Suna shinobi returned at sunset, in force. They had apparently lost all chance at a surprise attack, if Konoha had organized this kind of defense on the exact stretch of border that they had planned to use to cross into Fire country, and there was no reason to believe moving up or down the border to cross somewhere else would do anything other than give Konoha time to counter them more effectively or lead them into another trap of the same magnitude.

Their best chance was to push through here, as quickly as possible, and hope that they'd be able to force a armistice by laying Konoha proper to seige. With some concessions to improve their situation, this whole thing wouldn't be a total loss.

No one had expected any actual defense from Konoha against a surprise invasion, and no one wanted or was prepared for a long, drawn-out war.

* * *

To paraphrase the demonic aspect of the Sage of Insight, A battlefield is a fantastic place for a Sharingan user to power up.

Sasuke was learning firsthand why his clan had been dreaded across uncountable battlefields, the rain of kunai and low rank jutsu was no threat to him, and his taijutsu was growing in leaps and bounds. Several hours of intense dodging had improved his movements and footwork in ways that simple training would take months to match, and his jutsu repertoire had grown to include several low rank wind, earth, and lightning techniques.

Unsurprisingly, the desert ninja didn't use many water techniques, and had little to teach him about fire techniques that he didn't already know.

At this point, he wasn't really even bothering to attack his enemies. Instead he danced through them, triggering traps and leading them into the crossfire, all of his attention focused on gleaning every jutsu, movement, and secret he could from an army of ninja.

Occasionally, an enemy chuunin would get frustrated and let loose with a high rank jutsu to clear a safe zone or drive out one of the many opponents, but very few were willing to burn chakra on a finishing strike with no guarantee of a hit, instead limiting themselves to weaker techniques that they could afford to use_ en masse_.

He knew Kakashi would spend the next few months focusing on refining his ability to use the plethora of new jutsu in between bouts of basic stamina and chakra control training, but at least he was seeing tangible, empirical growth at a rate he hadn't had since..._ever_.

Leaping into a clearing, Sasuke charged a wide-eyed chuunin, one hand snaking forward towards his face, before pivoting and sliding around the ninja, effortlessly dodging a kunai strike, before grabbing his opponent's coat at the elbow and pulling forward, forcing the chuunin off balance, and stumbling into another ninja that had been attempting to strike Sasuke from behind. Fortunately for them, the averted kunai strike did not lead to an incidental, friendly stabbing between teammates. Unfortunately for them, they both fell in a twisted mass of limbs, before breaking through the thin layer of earth concealing a pitfall trap containing several chakra draining tags.

Turning to the remaining two Suna ninja in the clearing, Sasuke, still disguised as his sensei, beckoned them forward. Casually ducking a wind bullet, he rising to meet the charge one of his opponents, lifting him and tossing him to the side, where he was quickly perforated by ice needles.

The fourth ninja took a hesitant step back, glancing at his fallen teammates, before breaking and running back for reinforcements. He made it just past the treeline before spasming and falling to the ground.

Sasuke mock saluted the hidden clones that had set up a capacitor barrier, before pulling out several chakra draining tags and ensuring that all four ninja were secured and bereft of chakra before the Naruto's carried them off away from the battlefield to be dealt with later, only stopping to point Sasuke in the direction of the next squad of enemy shinobi had made the mistake of straying too far from their column.

* * *

_In Konoha_

"-And after we met the squad that had stumbled into the minefield, they attacked Kakashi-sensei, so we dealt with them. Then Kakashi-sensei followed their tracks back to a camp, where he found an entire regiment of Suna shinobi, heading straight for the Konoha. So they sent me to raise the alarm. I left them at the minefield with the rest of my tag stockpile so they could hold their position for as long as possible to keep me from being followed." Sakura babbled at the annoyed looking jonin who had been introduced to her as Nara Shikaku.

She was currently in a hospital bed, a medic had checked her tachycardic, hypotensive condition and promptly strapped her to a bed to keep her from doing something stupid like running off or trying to use more chakra, muttering mutinously about 'Chakra Exhaustion' and 'Bad Examples' before sprinkling pepper on the windowsill and running off to fetch several medications and a cat.

"Did anything happen to you on your trip back?" Shikaku asked, only half paying attention to her.

"No, the trip back was both faster and less eventful than the trip there," answered Sakura, "Unless you count almost ending up a hostage in a fight between the Hokage and whoever that was dressed as the Kazekage."

_"Ask him about the bounty." _Ishi prodded.

'We'll deal with the Serial Killer's bounty when we don't have to worry about a war.'

"We'll go over your involvement in that..." Shikaku paused and grimaced, "..._incident_ later. Just get some rest and let us deal with this, it is our job, after all."

The older ninja gave her a wry smile before turning and barking at several of the masked shinobi that followed him while leaving the hospital room. "Hamster, Find Jiraiya. Tora, take Dolphin and Sparrow and go detain the Team Suna and their sensei at the White Lotus hotel. Piglet, go tell the barrier team to enter Seige mode. Vole, go inform the Hokage. Beetle, go alert the reinforcement task force about the minefield and what to look out for as they a track down the rest of Team 7."

His voice trailed off as he left the room, still handing out orders to aid in the defense of the village without doing more to upset the various civilian visitors that had flocked to Konoha for the Chuunin exams.

Sakura blankly stared at her door for several seconds.

'So now what?'

_"Breathe in from your stomach."_

Sakura did so, holding the air in for several seconds before calmly exhaling.

_"Again. and Again. and so on."_

_'_Why?' thought Sakura, even as she complied with her ever-present companion.

_"Parasympathetic Nervous Response," _came her response.

'That explains nothing.'

_"Just keep doing it."_

_'_Fine._'_

When Sakura's medic returned, he found a sleeping child chained to her hospital bed, rather than a manic soldier desperate to help her home.

* * *

Sasuke continued to ambush lone or partial squads of Suna Shinobi for several hours. He knew Naruto resting near the back of the minefield while his horde of clones was doing its best to scatter the massive force of enemy shinobi, sow chaos liberally, and patch or reinforce the minefield wherever possible, while Kakashi and Ebisu were doing their best to assassinate any commanders or high ranking ninja who seemed to be succeeding at restoring order in their troops.

Despite his best efforts, it seemed that he wouldn't be able to match Sakura's score in this battle and she wasn't even here. Most of the casualties were panicked shinobi fumbling their way into an explosion, hail of needles, or pitfall trap.

He paused his game of Uchiha and Mouse to take a short break and bolster his dwindling Chakra, taking the opportunity to confer with the original Naruto about the best targets for his return to the fight, the conversation pausing every few minutes for Naruto to spawn a few dozen clones or gather his gestalt of thoughts.

Several thoughts occurred to Sasuke as he was considering which squad he would target next. Chuunin weren't much of a challenge anymore, at least not while panicked or on a field of battle literally designed to grant him the greatest advantage possible. The Uchiha symbol was a fan, and he remembered some of his older 'uncles' telling stories about Madara using a fan during some of great battles.

Making a decision, Sasuke decided to attack a Jonin wielding a bladed battle fan who had, according to Naruto, been cutting down his clones and deflecting projectiles to cover other shinobi along the southern quadrant of the minefield.

Those large scale jutsu might help his score catch up with Naruto, if not Sakura, and he'd feel more like a proper Uchiha with some 'training' in how to use his Clan's ancestral weapon. Itachi had never used a fan or any type, which was as solid a reason to do so as any Sasuke had ever heard.

"I'll go deal with the Fan-Mistress" Sasuke said to Naruto-Prime.

"Oh, Good." Naruto answered, "She's actually been getting close to here, if you go a little bit that way," he pointed, "you'll run right into her. Be careful, if you break Rule 1, Sakura-chan will blame me."

"Yeah, yeah," Sasuke said dismissively, "No dying, I can handle this. I have to be able to handle something like _this._"

"An invasion?"

"No, one measly jonin." Sasuke said sourly, "if I want to be able to deal with-"

"-_With **that man**" _interrupted Naruto, rolling his eyes, "Trauma later, War-zone now."

"Screw you too, Naruto."

With that, Sasuke leapt into the trees, quickly weaving a disguise technique and resuming the form of his teacher while heading towards the ninja who had given his teammate so much trouble.

A little bit later, Sasuke muttered to himself, "To what moronic stamina engine is half a click 'a little bit that way'," as he finally heard the gusts of wind and saw several.

The world around him slowed down as his eyes began to glow red, tomoe whirling almost whimsically. He spun through a wave of kunai launched reflexively by the Suna Shinobi's squad at the large, moving target. He grabbed the last of the weapons, as it passed him, scanning the clearing filled with trees, cut down by explosions or wind techniques, noting the 7 chuunin and 1 jonin who would be his next opponents. As he fell through the air, he continued his spin, lashing out with his newest kunai at the Fan Mistress, and older Kunoichi with black hair, wearing a long, belted tunic, colored in dull beige, marking her among the generic uniforms of the other shinobi.'

His blow was met by a large metal fan, and Sasuke was surprised to see the metal fan's edge actual cut into the kunai. Releasing the knife, he went for a low kick, attempting to sweep his opponent off her feet, while drawing and launching several shuriken at the other ninja in the clearing.

His opponent jumped over his leg mid kick, so Sasuke leapt back and over one of the other ninja, landing so that the rest of the squad couldn't attack without risking friendly fire, before quickly overpowering the unlucky chuunin and sending him stumbling with a side-kick to the armpit, forcing the jonin to deflect a storm of sendon from a trap going off.

Sasuke continued on this tactic, using illusory clones and traps to distract the jonin while dealing with the remaining chuunin one or two at a time with a flurry of taijutsu. When only the jonin remained, Sasuke took a moment to pause, staring down his next opponent.

"You made a mistake, leaving me for last, Hatake." she called out to him.

"Oh?" Sasuke asked.

"If I don't have to worry about my teammates, I don't need to hold back. And now," she said dangerously as she took a stance with her fan, "**I've got nothing to lose.**"

Sasuke quickly formed several illusory clones, all overlapping with himself, resulting in a headache inducing, kaleidescopic dance, before the twisting mass of would-be flesh charged the enemy. They quickly engaged in a fierce, close range battle, in which Sasuke actually found himself being overpowered.

"Clones, Hatake?" she shouted angrily, "Not even solid clones, are you really **that** arrogant?"

Sasuke disengaged by diving to ground, literally, while his opponent scrambled to stop him from diving into the safety of the earth.

**_Flash_*BANG**

As the Suna Kunoichi blinked the stars from her eyes, Sasuke leapt from the earth and began pressing the assault, pushing back the dazed jonin and landing a few small cuts before she recovered her equilibrium. Just as the tide turned, however, Sasuke disengaged, flickering into a nearby tree and letting loose with several wind bullets, which were all blocked by his opponent's metal fan as the opening movement of a retaliatory wind jutsu,unleashing a small cyclone that _shredded _the debris in it's path, forcing Sasuke to quickly flicker away, before charging in for another quick taijutsu bout, this time leaving a Taser tag on the fan itself.

Hearing the hiss, the enemy jonin immediately threw the fan at Sasuke who ducked. Her face seemed a little surprised to see no explosion. She pressed the attack, driving Sasuke back until he almost stumbled over the fan itself, only avoiding a fierce blow aimed for his nose by substituting with a fallen log, which cracked open under the force of the blow it took.

"Is that all you have?" Sasuke jeered as his opponent picked up her fan.

"That's it," she responded, biting her thumb, "Now it's personal. **Summoning Technique**"

Sasuke was momentarily surprised when a large weasel appeared, before mumbling to himself, "Why is it always the weasels?"

Swallowing his gripe, he focused intensely on his opponent as she addressed her summon.

"Kamahata, collaboration technique" she barked, pointing in Sasuke's direction. The weasel nodded in response before bringing its paws together, its tail swaying wildly while its master focused intensely on her target.

Sasuke felt slightly awkward watching, the set up for the jutsu was relatively slow, taking several seconds, and while he couldn't copy the fan half of the collaboration technique, it seemed that the _weasel_ was using recognizable hand-signs for its part of the jutsu. He could probably have disrupted this technique several times already, but he wanted to see what it would do, especially if he now had a chance to steal someone's trump card.

**"Quick Beheading Dance"** Called out the Kunoichi as her weasel projected a long, scythe-like claw of wind from its paws. The summoner and weasel spun together, unleashing multiple focused blades of wind, boosted by an great cyclone, which Sasuke only barely managed to avoid with a quick substitution and body flicker.

He watched in awe of the powerful collaboration technique as it tore through the land behind him in seconds, dozens of traps were triggered futilely by the large scale attack, as the final kilometer of the minefield simply ceased to be.

Then, Sasuke was shocked as hundreds of tiny beacons of chakra, all throughout the forest blinked out at once before his eyes. It took several seconds for him to understand what had happened.

"Naruto," He mumbled to himself. "But his clones didn't disperse any of the times Kakashi or Sakura knocked him out during training, or when he went to sleep."

He dropped his disguise in shock, surprising the Suna jonin.

"**The Hell?** Where's Hatake? are you telling me my squads were both wiped out by some kid?"

"Which means, because I was playing around watching jutsu that I should have stopped..." Sasuke continued numbly, ignoring his foe, "He's...dead...because of me."

"Fuck this" the Suna jonin said readying herself to execute the kid who'd trounced her subordinates.

Sasuke felt rain on his face, and immense pressure in the back of his head.

The world stopped.

* * *

**Cliffhanger, HA**

**Your tears are delicious, and your suffering is sublime.**

**Tune in next time for the resolution of the plot arc.**


	25. Chapter 25: Rule 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and this disclaimer is about as important as consistency is to Kishimoto.**

**Chapter 25: Rule 1**

_And now the continuation:_

Many thoughts ran through Sasuke's head after he accepted culpability for the death of his friend.

'Why didn't I just finish this and move on?'

'Is this what you wanted, Itachi?'

'Sakura is going to kill me.'

While Naruto's death had come as part of an epic battle to decide the future of his village, it wasn't the kind of death ninja aspired to. He had fallen to _collateral damage, _not as some great sacrifice in personal combat, not in a mutual exchange of justu, not to a clear and present foe facing him across the battlefield, but the a jutsu that happened to be heading his direction, aimed at someone else by an opponent Naruto had trusted him to defeat.

It was so..._pointless_.

Slowly, Sasuke turned as a new weight settled in his head and heart, to face the Jonin he should have defeated already, the Jonin that was now going to die screaming.

The jonin who, to Sasuke's surprise, now seemed to be blurring slowly through the air with all the speed of an Akimichi. She now resembled a strange Human/Centipede hybrid, with many sets of the same two legs blurring forward and back, losing their apparent solidity several iterations from a central 'main' body. The most solid body seemed to flow forward through the visible iterations, even as more bodies became visible at the head of the monstrosity while the older bodies at its rear vanished into non-existence.

Despite the strange overlap of multiple bodies, Sasuke seemed to have no trouble discerning the movements of the Jonin, suddenly much slower than previously, it took him several subjective seconds to realize what he was seeing.

His sharingan had reached the next level of combat precognition and was showing him the direct flow of movements his opponent would take, at a slow enough pace for him to completely comprehend it.

As the novelty of a an entirely new sense wore off in the face of mortal combat, Sasuke began to focus on how to **burn** this opponent. It wouldn't bring that idiot back, but it would probably make him feel better.

The weight behind his new eyes increased, and Sasuke suddenly felt exhausted as a void sprang into existence and began burning away at his opponent, who howled in pain and slowly (from Sasuke's perspective) tried to smother the ethereal "flames".

Her flame-retardant flak vest did nothing to impede the flames; dropping the ground and rolling in the moist dirt accomplished nothing until she fell into a pitfall trap and burned away the seal tags that had served as a secondary trap, several released paint as they failed, while the few taser tags simply suffered total existence failure.

Despite the sudden feeling of exertion and the growing weight of his eyelids, Sasuke refused to look away or blink. He would not deny what had led to this or his involvement in it. Even as his eyes began to water, he continued to stare at the slow death of his new great regret.

Eventually, the Suna jonin threw off a quick and weak earth technique, collapsing the walls of the pit and burying her in moist earth in the hopes of finally smothering the flames.

Sasuke watched impassively as the earth dried and burned away, exposing his opponent to air once more. Though burying the fire had apparently done nothing to weaken the sable flames, the re-exposure to oxygen caused them to flare up, stronger then they had been before.

Eventually, the jonin ceased struggling as the conflagration consumed her body, filling the air with the disgustingly sweet smell of burnt flesh and bitter tang of burnt hair.

Only when the flames had consumed all the flesh they could, leaving a charred skeleton, did Sasuke allow himself to blink the fatigue from his eyes.

He felt a tear slide down his face as he clumsily sat down, considering exactly what he should be do next.

After a minute, Sasuke looked towards the various sparks of chakra slowing making their way through the minefield.

The army that would potentially devastate Konoha

Well if Naruto had care so much about the village, then it was now his job to protect it, if only as a tribute to his deceased friend.

Sasuke pulled out and swallowed a soldier pill before struggling to his feet and turning to face the bulk of the Suna Army. Without Naruto's clones harassing them, the main bulk of the force had regathered into something resembling an orderly formation and begun making real progress through the minefield.

'Well', thought Sasuke, 'I finally have _his_ eyes, lets turn the Land of Fire into the Land **on** **Fire**.'

* * *

_With Kakashi_

_"_What happened to our backup?" Ebisu asked his superior questioningly.

_"_Well," Kakashi said glumly, "At least I know what it takes to make Naruto tired enough to flub his favorite jutsu now. Next time he's too energetic I just need to get a thousand ninja to tire him out a bit."

"Making a mistake with the Shadow Clone technique can end previously made clones?" Ebisu asked, lacking much practical experience with the technique.

"Occasionally," Kakashi answered, "As can forced unconsciousness. The clones are connected to the user even if they have individual autonomy, and the link goes both ways."

"Are you sure Naruto isn't..."

"His real body was out of the way of fighting and he knows better than to break Rule #1"

"Oh," Ebisu said before continuing"So we're..."

"Without backup, exhausted, and likely to see an second wind in out opponents any minute now."

"Dammit." Ebisu muttered.

"Any ideas for how to keep them from regaining the initiative while Naruto gets his act together?"

"...Take out any ninja that seems to be taking charge with long range jutsu?"

"Well _obviously_ we're going to do that." Kakashi said derisively, "I'm not some random genin, I'm-"

* * *

_With the Suna Army_

_"_Hatake _fucking_ Kakashi" muttered Kamiya Tadashi, a Suna Jonin struggling to maintain order among his troops.

This entire invasion had started sketchy and only gone downhill. Apparently Konoha Intelligence had gotten off it's ass for a minute and made preparations for them.

One ninja had displayed enough chakra to resemble a bijuu, created an army of hundred of clones with enough tactical wherewithal to scatter the Suna army like leaves on the wind, and utterly ruined any chance they had of participating the in joint invasion of Konoha proper.

The genin were terrified, the supply lines were wrecked, the medics were exhausted, and only the highest and lowest ranked ninja in the army were still in fighting shape.

However, without any apparent cause, the targeted clone assaults the had been harrying any concentration of force the invasion force had managed to muster simply ceased.

Tadashi and the remaining command shinobi had quickly taken advantage of the lull to reorganize and regroup. Apparently Hatake _fucking_ Kakashi was tiring enough to stop his war of attrition.

As hundreds of ninja caught their breaths, order was restored. Cloth-weapon users and the rare earth elementalists of Suna began preparing wide-area attacks to trigger and destroy enough traps to allow the army to finally seep through the minefield. One final focused push would probably be enough to get them out of this quagmire, provided they didn't play Hatake _fucking_ Kakashi's game anymore.

Without warning, a wall of black fire erupted on the Northern flank of the army, and even as several ambitious chunin tried (and failed) to extinguish the obvious jutsu, another wall of flames sprang into being on the southern flank of the Suna army.

'Forward or Backward' thought Tadashi before calling out "GET READY TO PUSH FORWARD."

Suddenly, a massive bullet of water flew over the northern wall of fire, at the jonin standing near him, who scattered.

Tadashi leapt towards the head of the army, narrowly avoiding the attack that had clearly meant to decapitate the command structure of the invasion force. Smiling to himself, he turned to the Army and opened his mouth for a battlecry.

Only to be consumed by a lightning bolt shaped like the maw of a wolf.

'Hatake _fucking_ Kakashi' Tadashi thought to himself as he fell, when an alien chakra, of a type intimately familiar to all of Suna began to flow across the battlefield.

**HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE****HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE****HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE****HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE****HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE****HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE**

Faced with a choice between retreat and pushing forward through the nightmare that haunted all but the most elite members of Suna, the already tired and weakened army broke and ran.

* * *

Sasuke would normally be rather happy.

His teammates had exhausted and confused an invasion force, he had corralled them, and his senseis had decapitated what leadership remained after the hours of battle. The Suna invasion force had broken ranks and retreated as fast as they could. Naruto, that loudmouth moron, would describe them as running like scared rabbits, while Sakura would laugh evily, were either of them here.

He, Sasuke, the spare Uchiha, had taken part in a battle outnumbered 250 to 1, and not only survived, but achieved an overwhelming victory. The odds against him were even worse than one ninja against an entire clan, and he was still only twelve years old: a year younger than _that man_ had been on _that night_.

The problem was the **unbearable **malice that could be felt coming from base camp. The chakra was thick enough in the air, that even hundreds of meters away, Sasuke's sight was tinged a muddy red (If only because he could see chakra with even greater clarity than he had an hour ago).

When Sasuke remembered how to breathe, he ignored the fleeing Suna contingent and faced the source of the **hatred_, _**and understood that it **knew him.**

It saw through him, and took in the entirety of his being. It saw every taboo hope, every shameful fear, every lie he told to himself or the world, every petty justification he gave for his actions, every fear he refused to face, every private mistake, every secret regret. This presence knew Sasuke Uchiha as Sasuke Uchiha knew himself, without the filter of comforting lies or self-deception.

And it **despised** him.

It didn't hate his actions, it didn't hate his circumstances, or some ideal or organization that Sasuke represented; It **acknowledged** and **hated **everything that was **Sasuke Uchiha. **(This level of personal recognition was something new to Sasuke, who had been either the Uchiha spare heir, or the last Uchiha, or the rookie of the year, or some other title for the entirety of his life before being placed on Team 7)

"Kyuubi" Sasuke whispered to himself as he realized where the oppressive chakra was coming from, before rushing off to deal with the consequences of his inaction the loss of his friend.

He ran through what remained of the forest, until he reached the focal point of the Kyuubi's chakra. What he saw disgusted him: Naruto's body, enshrouded in a writhing cloak of vermilion chakra, hunched over, mimicking the posture of a feral Inuzuka clansman (or a fox).

Sasuke raged forward at the beast wearing his friend's corpse, kunai in hand, and lashed out, only for not!Naruto to launch a wild hay-maker with his right arm while the chakra shroud split out from his arm and engulfing Sasuke's kunai and the hand that held it. Sasuke released the knife and instinctively recoiled from the Kyuubi's caustic chakra as not!Naruto's fist buried itself in his face. Sasuke flew back, flailing like a rag-doll, before recovering in the air and landing on the trunk of a massive tree, sliding along its trunk as he tried to shed momentum.

Trying a different tactic, Sasuke spat several small fireballs at not!Naruto the first few were dodged as his opponent swayed unnaturally back and forth, his feet never leaving the ground. Growing frustrated, Sasuke aimed the a fireball at his opponent's feet, smirking as Naruto's body leapt into the air, before firing again directly in his opponent's projected path.

A normal ninja would be unable to dodge in midair, which is why Sasuke was surprised when an arm of chakra grew from the back of Naruto's neck, and pierced the earth, before bending and forcing Naruto out of the way of fireball and vaulting him directly at Sasuke, who leapt back again, and sank into the earth, just as the explosive tags he had subtly planted at his feet before moving detonated.

The smoke cleared to reveal an unharmed Naruto, just as two hands sprouted from the earth beneath him and grabbed his ankles only, for Naruto to bound back, dragging Sasuke from the earth. The Uchiha managed to release his grip on his opponent's legs before he gained enough momentum to truly fly free so much as hop out of the earth.

Sasuke mentally counted down as two tags he had stuck to Naruto's ankle activated, just before Naruto landed. Both tags began to crumble into dust slowly. The first, a chakra draining tag, failed catastrophically, igniting as the containment failed.

The second, a taser tag, maintained its structure just long enough to unleash it's potent electrical current just before Naruto landed, causing him to spasm in pain and roar bestially as he crashed clumsily into the earth.

Sasuke smiled before muttering, "Not actually invincible, are you?"

The beast quickly regain its equilibrium and roared at Sasuke, before the pair charged at their counterpart, each throwing his weight behind a seemingly desperate punch, the kyuubi trusting its endless strength and Sasuke trusting ancient instincts of his new eyes.

'Let's see if the stone tablet was right,' Sasuke thought, 'when it said these eyes could suppress the Kyuubi.'

Sasuke and Naruto charged at each other, and their fists met.

* * *

_With Kakashi and Ebisu_

"Shit, shit, shit, shit Shit, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!, SHIT!, SHIT!"

"Calm down Ebisu."

"Calm down? CALM DOWN?" Ebisu screeched at his superior, "The goddamn Kyuubi is escaping its fucking seal and we're running TOWARDS IT? And you want me to CALM DOWN?"

"Well panicking isn't going to accomplish anything." Kakashi answered in a cheery tone.

Ebisu's left eye twitched.

"Besides," Kakashi continued, "It's not like this is the first time Naruto's seal has had issues in the field."

Ebisu's throat emitted a strangled sound more appropriate for a dying man than a healthy (if rather tired) ninja.

"Hopefully Sasuke hasn't died this time," Kakashi mumbled contemplatively, "We'll just need to play it this by ear, but I'm sure we'll be able to calm Naruto down before the seal breaks completely."

"How do you know the seal hasn't already shattered?" Ebisu asked.

Kakashi looked at the older ninja like one would normally look at a child or an idiot before calmly saying, "Because there isn't a giant, red, nine-tailed fox with the power to casually level mountains stomping around in this forest. If there were, we'd be able to see it from halfway to Konoha."

"Right" Ebisu said as he finally managed to stop panicking.

* * *

Sasuke stood facing the Kyuubi.

Not Naruto's corpse being puppeted by the Kyuubi, the actual Kyuubi.

He was staring down a giant, red, nine-tailed fox with the power to make cartographers weep.

If he weren't incredibly furious at himself for Naruto's death and at the aforementioned fox for its callous use of Naruto's corpse, then Sasuke would peobablr be pretty terrified at the immense head that was bubbling through the bars.

He didn't quite know how he'd ended up here, but since he was in an odd sewer instead of a disaster-zone/forest, faced with the _actual_ Kyuubi, Sasuke could only assume he was actually in the Kyuubi's seal.

**"Uchiha..." **the bijuu rumbled, **"Why are you here?"**

Sasuke took a deep breath, before loudly declaring, " KYUUBI! I **will** stop you!"

**"Stop me? No matter how much your embers are fanned, they will never match my power."**

"Probably," Sasuke answered flatly, "But I can't let you desecrate my friend's corpse."

**"Corpse?"**

"Corpse?" came a familiar voice from Sasuke's side.

Sasuke turned and saw his friend, his dead friend, his dead friend that he hadn't even noticed until just now, standing in the sewer with him, not 10 feet away.

Admittedly, the enormous fox had a way of keeping everyone focused on him.

"Naruto?" Sasuke whispered before turning to the fox, "And now you're taunting me with his face? It's not enough to wear his dead body like a suit?"

"What the hell's going on, Sasuke?"

"Shut up, Naruto, you're dead."

"No, I'm not" Naruto retorted.

"Yes, you are," Sasuke said as he turned to face Naruto.

"I'm not dead!" Naturo said petulantly, before stomping his foot.

"You are!" Sasuke said, raising his voice angrily.

"Nuh-uuuuuuuuh." Naruto responded eloquently.

Sasuke face-palmed before falling in to Naruto's childish stubbornness. "I have the Mangekyo Sharingan, moron, you can only get it by killing your best friend."

"I don't care if you personally pulled the Kusanagi from an eight headed snake's asshole, you asshole. I'm. Not. DEAD! I can't be dead, Sakura would kill me."

"These eye's don't lie." Sasuke said, frustration evident in his voice, "I have them, so I must have killed you, so you're dead."

"I don't remember you having done anything that killed me." Naruto said as he crossed his arms, "Last thing I remember before showing up here is a cyclone."

"Yeah," Sasuke said, "That's the jutsu a Suna jonin used, it ended up killing you and disrupting all your clones."

"I thought you were the one who 'killed' me?" Naruto said, making his opinion of his 'death' quite apparent.

"I did," Sasuke said quickly, "I could have stopped her from using the attack, but I wanted to copy the jutsu, so it's my fault you're dead."

"Sasuke," Naruto said flatly, "That's some of the stupidest logic I've ever heard."

"Well," Sasuke said, " apparently it counts, because I have the Mangekyo Sharingan."

"I'm still not dead."

Then how come the Kyuubi is taking over your body and riding it around like a meat-suit out in the real world? Wouldn't the seal keep it in if you were still alive?"

At this moment, both boys remembered the giant fox in the room and quickly turned to look at it, only to see it had managed to make some progress in slipping through the bars of its cage during their articulate debate.

**"Damn,"** the kyuubi sighed, **"****so** **close."**

"You're not going anywhere, you monster!" Naruto cried out.

"Yeah," Sasuke agreed, "Dead or just maimed, I'm not letting you mess with Naruto like this."

The two boys felt their chakra surge forward. Sasuke's driving the fox back while Naruto's chakra dispersed the portions of the fox that were trying to anchor themselves outside of the seal.

**"I hate those eyes, I hate this seal," **the kyuubi roared as it was forced back into it's cage, **"And I _will_ be free of both of them. If it takes a thousand years, I _will_ be free once more."**

Panting with exertion, the two boys turned to one another and started to chuckle at the absurdity of what they'd done, before losing all control and doubling over in laughter from amusement and relief.

Eventually, the laughter petered out, before Sasuke turned to Naruto and said, " Good work, moron." before extending a fist

"Good work" Naruto agreed, "asshole." before reciprocating the fist-bump.

* * *

_In the real world_

Both boys returned to consciousness lying on the ground in a small clearing.

"Told ya," Naruto said, gasping for breath as he turned to look at his teammate on the ground, "I'm not dead."

"Yeah," Sasuke answered, "You told me."

Several moments passed.

"Sasuke?"

"Yes, Naruto?"

"Have you been crying?"

"Tears of blood." Sasuke said defensively.

Naruto started snickering

"Shut up," Sasuke said, "My new eyes are awesome."

It was several minutes before Kakashi and Ebisu showed up and found the two boys exhausted, injured, but alive. Looking down at his errant students, Kakashi turned to Ebisu and said, "I told you everything would be fine."

* * *

**AN: WHOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm back and the invasion arc is done, next chapter is wrap-up and set up for the next arc.**

**Thanks for being patient, My laptop fell down some stairs, and that delayed this chapter, the next chapter shouldn't take as long to write.**


	26. Chapter 26: Cooldown

**Disclaimer: I have not gained ownership of Naruto since the last chapter was published**

* * *

**Chapter 26: Cooldown**

_The Minefield: Konoha Side_

Ninja warfare had a way of destroying vast swaths of land, at least since the advent of Chakra. This was clearly evident in the aftermath of the failed Suna invasion of the Land of Fire.

Between the massive cutting cyclone, hundreds of explosions, unquenchable black flames, and tainted miasma of Bijuu chakra, there was very little foliage untouched in the several kilometers of border that Team 7 had booby-trapped to hell and back that didn't have some crater, scorch-mark, sawdust, or blood to commemorate the greatest ninja battle in over a decade.

In nature, this level of destruction could only be achieved by Eucalyptus trees growing in a dry season or an ant invasion of Stephenson-esque proportions.

While the battle didn't have the tectonic effect of the legendary battles of the past, such as the battle between Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha which carved out the Valley of the End, but the fauna would not return to that particular stretch of land for months, the forest would not regrow to its former glory for years, and any sage or advanced chakra sensor would be able to feel the malice of the battle for decades to come.

"Quit hogging the marshmallows, bastard" Naruto shouted weakly at his teammate from across the campfire, barely ambulatory following the aftershock of using the Kyuubi's chakra.

"What are you going to do if I don't? Crawl over here and bite my shins?" Sasuke responded weakly as he struggled with the herculean task of making S'mores will suffering from the aftershock of using the Mangekyo Sharingan and exhausting his Chakra reserves.

"Boys, if you can't share those marshmallows, I'll take them from you and eat them all. Now apologize to each other." Kakashi said, his chastisement somewhat undercut by the amusement clear in his voice.

"Sorry Sasuke/Sorry Naruto" both boys mumbled dejectedly.

"Now kiss and make up."

"**WHAT?**" both boys shouted.

Kakashi burst out laughing, unable to contain his mirth at the looks on his students faces.

"You're all insane." Ebisu muttered as he nibbled at a S'more.

Kakashi had followed the fleeing remains of the Suna army just long enough to ensure they would not be returning anytime soon, while Ebisu provided first aid to Sasuke and Naruto.

Cleaning up the minefield had taken most of the rest of the day, as Naruto and Sasuke were to tired to be useful as a source of labor, leaving Kakashi and Ebisu to search a blasted hell-scape for scraps of paper after the master-control seal had deactivated the remaining traps.

Naruto and Sasuke had sorted the seals that had been recovered, and stowed them in a pack. There were probably a few seals that remained in the woods, buried in pitfall traps or shredded around branches of fallen trees, but the vast majority had been recovered, checked for integrity, and then neatly packed away for Sakura to make use of when they returned to Konoha.

"Oh _calm _**down**, Ebisu, the worst is over, now we can head home without worrying about an army on our tails." Kakashi said, as he watched Naruto and Sasuke struggle to out cook and out eat each other.

"Well what are we going to do about them?" Ebisu said, gesturing with his thumb at the field of heads, where the living prisoners were currently buried to the neck after being drained of chakra.

"If Naruto is recovered enough to makes clones tomorrow, we'll have no problem."

"And if he isn't?"

"Then we'll pick a few of the highest ranking prisoners we can find, and carry them with a few of my clones, after digging up a few of the genin and leaving them to deal with the rest of the prisoners, most of them should have chakra exhaustion, so it's not like they'll be a major threat for a week or so, especially without their gear. By the time any decent number of them are free, we'll be halfway to Konoha."

At this moment, several dozen squads of Konoha jonin and chuunin made themselves known.

"I take it you no longer need assistance?" asked the nominal leader of Konoha's anti-invasion task force.

"Please," Kakashi snorted, "As if a piddly little invasion force could be a problem for Team 7. Now that the fighting and clean up is done, you can help us escort these prisoners back to Konoha."

* * *

_Two Days Later in Konoha_

Team 7 stood silently in the Hokage's office as their venerable leader stared grimly at them.

Sakura had been woken from her slumber half an hour previously by a rookie ANBU who had just learned a valuable lesson about waking a ninja from within stabbing distance.

Naruto and Sasuke had been carried back from the front by Kakashi and Ebisu, while the 81 living prisoners and scored of corpses were currently still being escorted back to the village and would arrive in several days.

"I sent you to the border on an R&amp;D mission, the milkiest of milk runs, for a chance to get some uninterrupted training outside of the village, where you couldn't get into any trouble" Hiruzen Sarutobi grumbled. "So explain the exact sequence of events that led you, Kakashi Hatake, to find yourself fighting 1000 enemy ninja with only your genin team and Ebisu under you command."

"Technically, One third of my genin team was carrying the alert back to Konoha instead of following me into battle."

"Kakashi," the Hokage warned.

"Well, It all started about 8 hours after we left the village, when an unknown ninja starting following us..."

* * *

_In a cave somewhere_

"And then I killed all but one of them." Kisame Hoshigaki, a tall, blue, brick-shithouse of a ninja reported to the leader of the Akatsuki.

"What happened to the last one?" Kakuzu asked, unable to hold his curiosity.

"Pussed out like a **bitch**." Kisame said with a grin while Itachi rolled his eyes.

"If that conclude Kisame's report on his latest mission," Pain said, "I believe that Zetsu has a report on one of our former members and his recent activities."

"_Oh yeah," _White Zetsu chattered, "_This is absolutely hilarious, and I know you're all going to love it."_

**"Orochimaru decided to attack Konoha and orchestrated an invasion by Suna in tandem with his new village of Oto by manipulating the Daimyo of Wind Country into laying various economic sanctions of Suna, then replacing the Kazekage at the recent chuunin exams.**" Black Zetsu said as he ignored his more exuberant half.

_"So anyway, while the Suna army tries crossing the border, they run into a single Konoha team, who send a warning back to Konoha in the hands of a genin that Suna is invading."_

**"That genin arrived at the Hokage's office shouting her warning about an invasion, unknowingly interrupting a meeting between the Hokage and Orochimaru posing as the Kazekage."**

_"So while Old Man Hokage ends up taking his former student to School with some help from his buddy Danzo, one Konoha team ends of fight an invasion force at the border while outnumbered 250 to 1, and they WIN!"_

"So why do we care?" Hidan interupted the plant man, "If a bunch of pathetic little wanna-be ninja heretics get their asses handed to them, it doesn't matter to us."

**"It does matter." **Black-Zetsu said calmly, **"For two reasons. First, Orochimaru ended up sealed by a powerful fuuinjutsu array that Danzo had set up on a deadman's switch, so while the Hokage survived, Danzo and Orochimaru are both effectively dead and out of our reach for the time being. Second, the Konoha team in question was a genin team lead by Kakashi Hatake and contained both the Kyuubi Jinchuriki and-"**

_"Itachi's adorable little brother. Don't kids grow up so fast? One day, you're murdering there parents in front of them and the next they're taking on armies and performing feats of legend."_

"Ignoring Itachi's little brother," Pain interjected, "With Orochimaru sealed, we have no way of recovering his ring, and likely will not be able to, which means we will need to rework the extraction and sealing process for the bijuu, additionally, it seems that the Kyuubi jinchuriki is either more powerful than expected or incredibly lucky, and as such more information is required before we proceed. Itachi?"

"Yes, Leader-sama?"

"Follow the Kyuubi container for a few months. If he leaves the village, stress him, but don't kill or capture him. I want a clear picture of his abilities, even if the Kyuubi will need to be sealed last."

"Understood." Itachi said, with a hint of a smile.

* * *

_In Iwa_

"And that," Tsuchikage Onoki said to his advisers, "is why we didn't invade Konoha right after that yellow asshole died."

"So they repelled a minor invasion from Suna," one of the more militant members of Onoki's cabinet said, "We would still have been able to crush them."

"No, we wouldn't" Onoki said, letting an unspoken 'You Idiot' hand in the air before continuing, "The annoying thing about those asshole plant-fetishists is that they always have another prodigy in the woodwork, ready to turn what should be a simple battle into an unforgiving reversal and clusterfuck, in this case it seems that Namikaze taught his student more than we thought before We passed on."

"He's talented, but I really don't think you can compare the Copy ninja to the Yellow Flash."

"He just fought off an army, by himself no less, and apparently displayed enough chakra that the sensors in the Suna army mistook him for a bijuu, something that hasn't happened since Kisame Hoshigaki fought in the last war. THIS IS WHY WE DON'T START WARS WITHOUT A DAMN GOOD REASON." Onoki shouted at his senior staff before calming down and continuing, "Up his bounty, mark him as S-class in the Bingo book, inform our teams to stay away from Konoha for the forseeable future, and get the hell out of my office."

* * *

_Back in Konoha_

"The seals were that effective in the field?" The Hokage asked in surprise, prompting Sakura to bristle at the perceived slight.

"Suna's shattered offensive is a glowing testimony to their efficacy, Hokage-sama." Kakashi answered before his student could get indignant.

"Well then, I can find no fault in your actions, though the full ramifications of these past few days have yet to be fully seen." the Hokage said before continuing, "Congratulations on your second successful C-rank mission, Team 7, the bounty for Bari Kinoshita will be paid out to you five, as well as a bonus and commendation for excellence in the line of fire. I expect you all to report to the medics, and enjoy your vacation, I will call you here in a weeks time or as needed to discuss Team 7 going forward. Ebisu, you have done an excellent job with Kakashi's genin, just as I would expect from the man to whom I entrusted my grandson, but your time with Team 7 is done and after your vacation, you may return to your normal duties as a tutor. Any questions?"

"No Hokage-sama," Team 7 replied as one.

"Dismissed."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

As soon as team 7 left the hokage's office, Sakura turned to her teammates and pulled both of the into one armed hugs, which the carefully reciprocated.

"I'm so glad you're alright, Sasuke, Naruto...and you too Kakashi-sensei and Ebisu-sensei, I suppose."

The two boys fidgeted silently while Kakashi smiled at his students and Ebisu grunted and waved goodbye before saying, "I'm getting a drink, or twelve, see you later."

After several seconds, Sasuke's will broke and he confessed, "Naruto broke Rule #1."

"_**What?!**"_ Sakura hissed out dangerously as her grip on her teammates necks tightened.

"Only for a minute." Naruto hastily defended himself, "And Sasuke cried."

"Tears of blood" Sasuke spat out, "How hardco-***grrk***" both boys choked as Sakura tightened her hold on each of them again.

"Now listen to me," Sakura said, her voice dangerously level and steady, "We are going to medical, then we're getting lunch, and for the foreseeable future the both of you are going to have to be very careful around staircases, am I clear?"

"Yes Sakura," both boys choked out.

Sakura then let her teammates go and began walking towards the staircase

'_Crying blood doesn't exactly sound healthy. I'm trying to think of what could cause bloody discharge from the lacrimal glands, and none of the answers are good.'_

"Sasuke, you're getting your eyes checked, and while we're there you two are going to tell me everything."

"Oh yeah, Sakura-chan," Naruto interjected, "your seals were totally amazing!"

"They were?" Sakura said hopefully, before catching herself, "Nice try Naruto, but you're still in trouble for breaking Rule #1"

"Oh come on, Sakura-chan" Naruto whined, "It was only for a minute and the Kyuubi fixed me right up."

* * *

_Back in the Hokage's Office_

The elderly hokage sighed as he leaned back in his chair, delaying ever so slightly in dealing with the mess that his village, before speaking, "So what do you think Jiraiya?"

The ninja in question flipped into the office from his position over the window before answering, "I think it's remarkable that you got your window replaced so quickly, after you threw a foreign dignitary through it."

Hiruzen's face was stone in response to his student's frivolity.

"Also," Jiraiya continued, "It's nice to know that Team 7 is still a madhouse, even after all these years. Though you should probably give all of them a psych-eval with Yamanaka-san after the week they've had."

"I already have the paperwork ready."

"I'll need to look over the girl's seals, but she might be useful, especially given her proximity to Naruto. Two C-rank missions, and both involved the kyuubi making an appearance, so I need to teach him how to safely harness its power. Hell, a fuuinjutsu user, a jinchuriki, and an uchiha all on the same team, they really are perfect for one another, I could write a book about this. I think I **will** write a book about this, maybe a lesbian love triangle."

"As much as I look forward to reading it, we have more important things to deal with," the hokage said with a wry grin, "Have you taken a look at Danzo's body?"

"Yup, he apparently decided to crib Kushina's notes," Jiraiya answered with a frown, "He set up a Reverse Four Symbols seal on a dead-man's switch, it'll hold Orochimaru easily, immortal body or no. That seal is essentially a simplified version of the seal holding the Kyuubi at bay, and stronger, technically, than Naruto's seal, because it isn't leaching off it's prisoner's chakra. Opening it would take an override by the maker, the bearer, or a stupid amount of chakra from an external source."

"How much chakra?"

"It would take me over a decade of constant effort to break it, even if I used senjutsu," Jiraiya stated flatly

"What if the seal were physically destroyed?" the elderly ninja asked with a frown.

"Then the link to storage space would be cut, and Orochimaru would be lost forever as he lacks an inherent tie to our world like the bijuu, but the backlash of the broken seal would cause a massive explosion or some exotic spatial effect."

"You're _absolutely _**sure?**" the Hokage asked forcefully.

"Perfectly sure" Jiraiya said with an offended expression, "I spent years going over Minato's magnum opus, and I still read through his and Kushina's notes when I'm feeling sentimental. I could make that seal blindfolded, with my littlest toe and still have enough focus to take on any jonin currently on Konoha's roster."

"Thank whatever gods may be," Sarutobi said, calming slightly, "Orochimaru was always too slippery, there can be no room for uncertainties with his fate."

After a short pause, the elderly ninja continued, "How goes your progress with Gaara and the Ichibi?"

"Slowly" Jiraiya admitted, "that seal is a mess. You'd think with their dedication to puppetry Suna would have some decent Sealmasters, but that seal shows all the imagination of a wooden post and all the foresight of Tsunade in Sin City, the only part of it that works well is the encryption, so I can't even modify it easily. If the seal wasn't already attached to a person, I'd honestly rather undo the whole thing, fight the Ichibi, and start over from scratch."

"Such is life," Hiruzen sighed, "We used up all our luck stumbling over the invasion the way we did, if this turned out easy, I'd suspect a trap."

"Give me a few weeks, and I'll fix something up, just worry about de-escalating with Suna before anyone else decides to take a swing at us."

"I've been preventing wars for almost two decades now, I think I can handle a border skirmish. Just worry about that seal, maybe bring Sakura-chan in as a learning experience, and use it to get publicly acquainted with Team 7."

"So you're finally letting me train Naruto?"

"I'm letting you help Kakashi-kun with his three students, if he and they agree with it."

"I'll take it."

* * *

_At the hospital_

"Well that's not good." said the medic who had been running diagnostics of Sasuke.

"What's not good?" Sasuke said, the barest hint of panic creeping into his voice.

"To start, you didn't cry bloody tears." The medic said, "The discharge was not from the lacrimal glands, like tears are. It was an actual discharge from the eye itself, and I can see the beginning of some scarring in your eyes."

"Scarring?"

"Yes, scarring," The medic continued clinically, "Something caused multiple subconjuctival hemorrhages. While they healed, the bloody discharge into and from your eyes caused scarring to form. Barely any at all, but if it keeps happening, you'll slowly lose your vision until you go entirely blind."

"Is there any treatment?" Sasuke asked nervously.

"The scaring can't be healed, but if we can find the cause of the hemorrhage, we can establish a preventative treatment. Fortunately, the damage is limited to your physical eye, rather than your retina or ocular nerves, so an eye transplant could restore your vision even if the damage became severe enough to cause blindness."

"A transplant," Sasuke said flatly, "because my eyes are exactly like everyone elses'."

"Right," the medic said sheepishly, "Sharingan, a transplant would take away your bloodline unless the donor eyes were from an Uchiha as well, preferable from a close family member."

"Great," Sasuke said bitterly, "So if I want to use my bloodline without going blind, I'd need either extensive medical knowledge of my bloodline, which no-one has, or to convince my psychotic, missing-nin brother to give me his."

The medic and genin stared at each other for several seconds, before Sasuke blinked, his face twisting between an expression of shock and dawning comprehension.

"Wait," Sasuke said, "So my bloodline causes chronic vision loss with prolonged use, and only a transplant from a family member can cure it?"

"Yes."

"That's why he left me alive." Sasuke said blankly, unable to process the re-contextualization of _that night_.

* * *

_In another room in the hospital_

"You're completely fine."

"Really?" Naruto asked excitedly as he glanced at the door.

"Yes."

* * *

_In yet another room in the hospital_

"Your muscles show signs of extreme fatigue, your kidney function isn't great, and your chakra system has been stressed greatly. I don't know how you forced that much chakra through your system, or why you thought taking a soldier pill would be a good idea, but you are going to need to take it easy for a few days. Keep chakra use to a minimum, limit your physical training to stretches and flexibility exercises, and drink lots of water."

"Thank you for your help," Sakura said politely, "Have a nice day, medic-san."

"Have a nice day, Haruno-san"

Sakura calmly left the examination room and found a cheerful Naruto fidgeting on a bench in the hallway. Saying hello, she sat down next to him and asked, "How was your check-up?"

"Great!" Naruto said exuberantly, "Even the medics agree that I'm totally awesome. What about you, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura sighed before answering, "Everything is sore, and the medics say I need to take it easy for a few days."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Naruto answered with a frown.

"Oh," Sakura popped out, "While I remember, did you guys pack up any of the seals from the minefield before coming back?"

"Yeah, Sakura-chan," Naruto said, his typical smile returning, "Kakashi-sensei and Ebisu-sensei got most of them from the forest, and Sasuke and I took the taser tags and chakra-draining tags off of the prisoners."

"Can I have them back?" Sakura asked, amused by her teammates easy return to good cheer.

"Sure." Naruto answered as he produced several packs small paper tags from various hidden pockets and handed them to his teammate.

The pair sat in silence for several minutes, waiting for their third teammate to finish his physical before Sakura spoke again.

"So you and Sasuke really met the Kyuubi?"

"Yup" Naruto said cheerfully, "He was really big, and really loud, and I really can't believe he fits in a cage in a sewer in a seal in my stomach."

_'This has potential'_

'Potential?' Sakura thought, 'How does meeting the kyuubi change anything about Naruto's situation.'

_'You'd be surprised, especially when his chakra can leak through the seal in times of stress.'_

"Konoha to Sakura." Naruto called out, waving his hand in front of Sakura's face.

"What, Naruto." Sakura growled as she snapped her head to glare at the blonde.

"You spaced out," Naruto said sheepishly

"Yeah," Sakura sighed, "I guess I did."

At this moment, Sasuke emerged from his examintion room, several bandages applied to his arms and legs, still clearly in a daze.

"Sasuke" Sakura worried, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Sasuke quietly said, "No serious injuries besides some burns on my hands that they fixed up."

"What's wrong, Sasuke" Naruto asked apprehensively.

"Nothing" Sasuke said calmly

"Bullshit" Naruto and Sakura said in unison.

"Everything's fine, "Sasuke insisted.

"Don't lie." Sakura demanded, "If Naruto noticed something's wrong, then there's clearly something serious going on."

"Yeah!" Naruto blurted out.

"Why do you even care?" Sasuke responded, before doing a double take and staring at Naruto for a second and then recovering.

"Because you're our teammate!" Naruto practically shouted

"And because you're our friend." Sakura added softly.

Sasuke glared at his teammates for several seconds, willing them to back down so he could go home and try to figure out what to make of his revelation. Naruto glared right back, while Sakura met his glare with a calm, determined expression.

The staring continued for several seconds, then a dozen seconds, then a minute.

Sasuke blinked.

Naruto smirked, prompting Sasuke to frown as he resumed his glared for several seconds, only to close his eyes and sigh.

"Fine, I'll tell you what's wrong" Sasuke muttered, "Just not here, we'll go back to my place and talk there."

"Perfect," Sakura agreed

"Can we stop to get something to eat on the way there?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke grinned ever so slightly while Sakura giggled and responded, "Fine Naruto, we can get food on the way."

"I need some fresh tomatoes anyway, after being out of town for a month" Sasuke agreed.

The three genin left together, only for Kakashi to emerge from his physical a minute later, throwing pens and pen-lights at his medic who shouted obscenities at him in exchange.

Kakashi looked around the hospital hallway he was standing in, casually tilting his head to avoid a sphygmomanometer thrown by an irate doctor, before speaking aloud, "Now where have my genin gone?"

* * *

**Lets get ready for mental health evaluations**

**In the story, that is, mental health evaluations for S&amp;S!Team 7**

**That we will watch for our amusement.**


	27. Chapter 27: Group Communications

**AN: Hey look, a chapter that didn't take two months to write!**

**Chapter 27: Group Communications**

_Sasuke's Apartment_

The genin of Team 7 sat in Sasuke's tiny kitchen, around a tiny table, eating the lunches they had purchased on the way from the Hospital to their teammate's tiny apartment. Sakura daintily ate her noodles, Naruto endeavored to inhale his food, and Sasuke chewed slowly, staring at the center of the table, nervous and uncertain about the explanation he had promised his teammates.

The three ate in silence, though Naruto fidgeted constantly, until Sakura, the slowest eater, finished her meal. She pushed her bowl to the center of the table and caught Naruto's eyes, the two shared a look before turning to Sasuke in unison and waited, expectantly.

A minute passed, with no-one disturbing the sound of silence, until Naruto finally asked, "So what's wrong?"

Sasuke sighed, and sat quietly for several seconds, unable to meet either of his teammates gazes, until he finally spoke.

"My eyes," he mumbled, "I unlocked the Mangekyo Sharingan when I thought my carelessness killed Naruto."

Sakura frowned at this confession, not having been aware of Sasuke's self-assessed blame in Naruto's injuries, but she kept quiet as her friend continued.

"On _that night_, **he** had the same eyes. **He** said to hate him, to cling to life, and to unlock these new eyes. Itachi killed everyone else in the clan, **_everyone:_** every cousin, uncle, aunt, every elderly grandparent and every adorable little toddler, but he left me alive. Before the massacre, he was my amazing big brother, and I loved him, I practically worshiped him, I always followed him around begged for his attention. Until, suddenly, he killed our cousin, Shisui. That was the first warning sign."

Sasuke's voice started to waver as he continued, "Then, one night, with no warning, I came home and found blood running in the streets. When I ran home, I saw him standing over our parent's corpses. **He **had those eyes and he used them to show me what he did, how he did it. He showed me how he-" Sasuke's voice hitched, his eyes watered, and his friends looked at him with concern evident in their eyes as he took a deep breath and continued, "-how he killed them, all of them. Over and over, I had to watch as he fought them and cut them down. Some ran, my younger cousins all hid, but it didn't help any of them. I had to watch, over and _over_ and **over**, as he toyed with them under a red moon, how he killed them in dozens of different subtle ways, with all the difficulty we have fighting dummies and posts in the training ground."

Sasuke stopped and took a deep breath, closing his eyes before continuing, "He told me about a secret place, a place where I could learn about the history of our clan and how to unlock the full potential of our bloodline, and then he left." Sasuke's voice had become cold, devoid of all emotion as he continued, "The tablet said that killing your best friend would unlock the full power of the Uchiha's despair, the Mangekyo Sharingan. But I never knew why he left me alive, until today. The medic looked at my eyes and said that the Mangekyo was damaging my eyes, minute scarring, not enough to be a problem yet, but presumably continued use of my eyes would make it worse. He said that a transplant would fix the problem, optimally from a close family member."

Sakura let out a small gasp in understanding, before Sasuke continued, "It's always the same story," he joked morbidly, "He was always stronger, more talented, and I was just the spare heir, a contingency if the worst should happen to the perfect Uchiha, and now I find out he left me alive as a spare set of eyes. I'm always trailing in his footsteps, always just a spare."

Sasuke opened his eyes at this point and took in his friends appearances. Sakura had one hand over her mouth, pain clear in her watery eyes. Naruto was openly weeping, eyes that had long since been dry on their own behalf wept for the pain of a friend.

Naruto practically leapt over the table, and hugged his rival, prompting Sakura to stand up, walk around the table, and join the hug.

The three children remained in their impromptu embrace for a long time, silent, as nothing needed to be said.

Eventually, the three calmed down, cleaned themselves up, and sat down at the table again.

"You're not a spare," Naruto said eventually, "You're an arrogant asshole, who broods too much, and gets more attention from Sakura-chan and the other girls than you deserve, and has a weird obsession with tomatoes, fire, and throwing both at other people, but you're Sasuke, a member of Team 7, and no-one can replace you to us."

"Yeah," Sakura agreed, "And don't you dare think even for a moment that a psychotic, infamous traitor out for your eyes is justification to break Rule #1. If _that man_ is out for your eyes, then we just need to get strong enough that it doesn't matter."

Sasuke didn't answer, but the faintest hint of a smile appeared on his face.

"Now that we've covered Sasuke's problem," Sakura said as she turned to Naruto, "Let's talk about the Kyuubi."

"What about the Kyuubi?" asked Naruto.

"You said the two of you actually saw the Kyuubi, I want to know what you meant by that."

"We meant exactly that," Sasuke answered, "We punched each other, and then we were in a sewer with the Kyuubi."

Sakura thought on that for a second, before leaning over the table and decking Naruto in the schnoz.

"**What the hell, Sakura-chan?!**" Naruto shouted at her, as he pushed backwards in his chair and brought his hands up to his face.

Sakura looked at her fist curiously before muttering, "It didn't work?"

If punching Naruto was all it took, we would have met the Kyuubi during academy training sessions," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes.

_'It's not the punch or the contact, it's the chakra.'_

'What do you mean, Ishi?' Sakura thought to herself.

_'Chakra is an expression of your most fundamental existence as a living being. The two fought a desperate battle, holding nothing back, their chakra's mixed during the final blow, and they found themselves in a place of thought and expression as a result.'_

'Huh,' Sakura thought, 'That gives me and idea.'

She held out her fist and told Sasuke and Naruto to hold out their fists as well. Sasuke did so without complaint, while Naruto cautiously edged forwards, refusing to blink or look away from Sakura's hand.

"Now," Sakura said, "I want the two of you to remember what that punch was like. Remember what your saw, what you felt, and what you thought. I want you to remember what your chakra felt like on that day, push that feeling forward into your fists."

"Got it/Hn," the boys agreed.

"Hold that feeling," Sakura said, as her own chakra flowed forward, out of her fist and mingled with her teammates chakra.

Sasuke felt sharp and brittle, as if it could splinter and consume itself at the slightest warning and burn everything around it. It was a chakra that moved quickly, struck decisively, and melded itself to the outside her chakra seamlessly.

Naruto was warm and open. His chakra was free-flowing, acting against itself as much as it acted collectively, but where Sakura touched it, his chakra mirrored her own. There was potential in his chakra, but it did not act as much as simply **exist**.

Both boys waited patiently as their eccentric teammate did whatever she had planned. They both felt the interplay of three chakras, but were unsure of what was happening.

'Why isn't this working?' Sakura thought to herself

_'You're holding back, both boys have shown themselves wholly and unreservedly, but you're still hesitant to show them who Sakura truly is. Instead of just trying to understand them, let them understand you.'_

Sakura blanched slightly at the thought, showing something so intimate would be...

She shook her head, these were her friends and teammates: they had fought together and bled together. If she couldn't share something with these two, then she couldn't share it with anyone.

Focusing, she stopped trying to simply push her chakra forward and instead let it mix with Naruto's and Sasuke's. Where before, she held herself static, now she let her chakra flow freely, lightly guiding all three chakras together. She could feel undertones in all three chakra's, tones that she couldn't identify, tastes that were corrosive and alien, both to each other and to their hosts.

"Hello, my adorable little students." said Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei?!" Sakura and Naruto cried, as they flinched in shock while Sasuke literally flipped out in shock and suspended himself from the ceiling.

_'DAMMIT!'_

"I'm so hurt," Kakashi said with sarcastic sorrow, "When I finished braving the dangers of Konoha General, I found my students had abandoned me to my fate. It took me hours to track you down, you know."

"Hours?" Sakura said in shock while Naruto giggled at Sasuke's overreaction "Holy crap, how long were we sitting there?"

Sasuke calmly dropped from the ceiling, before looking at the clock and answering, "About an hour and a half."

"What exactly were you trying to do, anyway?" Kakashi asked, prompting Sasuke and Naruto to both look at Sakura for an answer.

"Oh, well" Sakura mumbled, "We were trying to recreate what happened when Naruto and Sasuke saw the Kyuubi during their fight.

"Sakura," Naruto said calmly, "I know I'm not the smartest person on this team, but that was a **terrible** idea that could have gone wrong in so many ways, that it's only funny because Sasuke almost shrieked when Kakashi-sensei surprised us."

"I agree," Sasuke said, prompting Kakashi to raise his eyebrow, "Not with the shriek, I didn't shriek, but he's right that trying to meet the Kyuubi is a bad idea."

"Seriously, Sakura." Kakashi continued as he turned to his female student, "That's right up there with wanting to mess with the seal protecting the village that you don't understand."

Sakura had the decency to stare at the ground in embarrassment.

"Seriously, Sakura," Kakashi said harshly, "No more messing around with seals or esoteric chakra occurrences unless you know what you're doing and have taken appropriate precautions. Understood?"

"Understood, Kakashi-sensei" Sakura mumbled.

"Very good," Kakashi said, before his tone lightened, "Now I'd like to congratulate you three on your second successful C-rank mission."

Naruto and Sasuke laughed dryly while Sakura merely smirked.

"Between the chaos of Orochimaru showing up impersonating the Kazekage, and a failed invasion, however," Kakashi continued, "The consequences of our mission are still being sorted out. I'm expected to return to the Hokage's office tomorrow morning on behalf of Team 7 to receive our review, but you three will go to our normal training ground. You're all on light duty, so stretches and basic katas only."

Kakashi looked at his three genin, before fixing his gaze on Sakura, "No staircases until all three of you are cleared by medical."

"Understood, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said mournfully.

"Oh thank god" Naruto let out.

"Now let's go over what we learned on our mission."

The three genin took several seconds to think of an answer.

"Take the initiative," Sasuke said, "Enemies off balance are enemies who make mistakes."

"Be prepared," Naruto answered, "If the outcome isn't decided before the battle starts, then you've made a mistake."

Several seconds passed in silence. Sasuke, Naruto, and Kakashi all turned to Sakura expectantly, who was silent for several seconds before complaining, "Give me a minute, guys, it's not like I was actually there for the fighting."

Kakashi raised his eyebrow while responding, "I asked what you learned from the mission, not from fighting off an invasion."

"Ebisu smells like shrimp when you set him on fire?" Sakura asked

"Sakura."

"But it's true."

"I don't care if it is, Naruto, it's not what I meant and she knows it."

"Fine" Sakura sighed, "Be prepared to take any role in a mission if it's needed, even if it's not the role you thought you'd take. Always be ready to adapt to changing circumstances."

"Very good," Kakashi said, "I know you didn't want to leave us behind, but the message needed to get out as soon as possible. Even if we didn't need reinforcements in the end, the village needed to know what had happened, and your role was just as important as ours. Now do you three have any questions for me?"

"What's going to happen now?" Sasuke asked quietly.

"That's for the Hokage and, ugh, _diplomats_ to figure out," Kakashi said, making his opinion of diplomats clear.

"Oh, I have a question," Naruto chimed in, "So they had a lot of elemental Jutsu, which were cool, especially that giant whirlwind-"

"The one that killed you?" Sasuke pondered.

"Shut up, crybaby," Naruto bit out before continuing, "But we've all seen elemental Jutsu. What about the weird puppets, cloth weapons, and rope attacks they were using. I didn't see any hand signs, so how do they work?"

"Oh," Kakashi said, "Those techniques are actually really annoying to deal with. They synergize very well with poisons and explosives, so the experienced users almost always have indirect methods of attack. If you let the battle stretch on, then some glancing hits are almost always guaranteed, unless you're willing to burn most of your chakra on clones, or massive area attacks. It's an attack philosophy that mirrors the plethora of slow deaths that can be found in the desert. Unless you outclass your enemy or catch them by surprise, and victory is likely to be more trouble than it's worth."

"So how do they work?" Naruto asked hopefully as he bounced in his seat.

"Well really, they're all extensions of the same chakra shaping exercises that allow you to interact with inanimate objects with your chakra,"

"So one chakra exercise is the basis for three different Suna combat styles?" Sakura asked in disbelief.

"The puppet construction methods are a closely guarded secret, as are the methods of weaving cloth and rope to increase the efficiency of their use." Kakashi clarified, "And Suna had a whole department dedicated to poison development during the war. But the basics of puppetry, armored cloth, and rope dancing are all chakra strings, most of the utility is just limited if you're not privy to Suna's manufacturing methods."

"But you _can_ teach us how to use chakra strings?" Sakura asked, her eyes filled with hope.

"I can teach you how to _make_ a chakra string and control it; it's fairly similar to Sasuke's wire techniques, actually. But I don't know how much use you'll get out of it."

_'Sakura, If you don't learn how to make chakra strings; I will lose all respect for you and use my limited power to annoy you incessantly.'_

_'_You don't need to threaten me to do what I was already going to do, Ishi.'

_'Perfect'_

The four ninja stayed in Sasuke's apartment, for most of the rest of the day, discussing the finer points of the mission. Sasuke went through the various jutsu he had seen and copied, Naruto brought up the most effective uses of Sakura's seals that he had noticed, Sakura proposed alterations that would improve their efficacy, now that she had an armies worth of stolen chakra to work with, and Kakashi helped clarify anything that still gave his genin trouble. They talked for the rest of the day, until, eventually, they retired for the night.

* * *

_That night, in a private Karaoke room_

Two people sat in silence, sipping their drinks and flipping through the list of songs available. Eventually, one of them spoke.

"You **magnificent** _bastard._" came Sakura's voice, "You need to write a book so I can read it. How then hell did you manage to pull this shit off? Danzo, Orochimaru, and Madara in one go, not even Hashirama ever managed something like that."

"Wait," Kabuto said confusedly, "You're not mad about me messing up your plans?"

"Mad," Ishi said dismissively, "Why would I be mad? I mean, a little insane yes, but not angry. I'm not your boss, if you want to secretly plot against...name a noun, I don't really care. Just tell me how the hell you pulled it off."

"To be honest I was hoping for Madara and Orochimaru, getting Danzo was a complete fluke. I suggested Orochimaru use the Edo Tensei to obtain an immortal body, complete with the Sharingan after he learned that Sasuke wouldn't be in the Chuunin exam for him to approach."

"And Orochimaru, being Orochimaru, decided to pick the most famous Uchiha in recent history, Madara. Where did he get the DNA sample for the Jutsu?" Ishi asked.

"Honestly?" Kabuto answered, "No idea, he had some chunks of meat in a storage closet next to a hand in a jar."

"And what happened to the rest of Oto's forces in town for the chuunin exam?"

"I'm actually a little proud of this one," Kabuto said smugly, "With Orochimaru exposed by a flaw in his own plans, and _taken care of _by the Hokage before the invasion was scheduled to begin, I managed to place a few dead-drops and call off the actual invasion. You are now looking at the de facto leader of Oto."

"Cheers," Ishi said as (s)he raised h(er)is glass, "Naruto would be furious if he knew a member of his generation had beat him to the position of Kage, Hell, just for that I'll try to get Gaara installed as Kazekage to see how he reacts."

"Gaara?" Kabuto asked incredulously, "I know you mentioned Naruto 'beating the insanity out of him', but he really doesn't seem like the sort for politics."

"Meh, Suna sealing sucks serious shit. If Sakura gets a look at that seal, our chronic insomniac will be all better in one naptime."

The pair sat quietly for a minute

"So what's this I hear about Hatake Kakashi taking on a thousand ninja, single-handed?" Kabuto eventually asked nervously.

"Fuuinjutsu minefield on a scale almost never seen, combined with Naruto's proclivity for both disguise Jutsu and shadow clones, combined with Sasuke's Sharingan, equals a loooooooooooooot of scared shinobi crying in the dark."

"So it wasn't one _Konoha shinobi_ against an army, it was one _Konoha genin team_ against an army?" Kabuto said in disbelief.

"Plot Armor."

"What?"

"I keep telling you, Naruto and Sasuke are the protagonists; the nature of Chakra itself won't let them lose until they resolve Asura and Indra's little spat. Everyone else can die as needed, but those two are effectively immortal until they inevitably grow up, reach their potential, understand their spiritual heritage, and kick the shit out of each-other."

"Fantastic," Kabuto bitterly moaned, "So the universe says I'm not even the main character of my own life?"

"Not the universe," Ishi corrected, "Just Chakra."

"As long as it's just chakra," Kabuto said sarcastically before raising his glass in a mock toast, "To our irrelevance."

"Speak for yourself; you may be irrelevant, but I'm the mental psychosis of the love interest and token female character." Ishi shot back.

"Enough philosophy," Kabuto responded, "My ego can't take it. What happens now?"

"I suppose..." Ishi mused, "We basically sit around and train until Zetsu or Tobi makes a move. You should probably look through Orochimaru's research, and maybe Senjutsu. Have fun running a village, I'm sure you can turn Oto into a major player given a few years."

"What if I don't want to run a village?" Kabuto whined.

"Then turn it over to someone else. I don't care what you do, Konoha, Oto, Akatsuki, pick a side and have fun."

"Don't tell me what to do," Kabuto said imperiously as he crossed his arms.

"Just shut up and sing, Kabuto."

**Meh, feelings and bonding**


	28. Chapter 28: Confidentiality

**WOOOOOOOOO, I, and this story, are still alive, so enjoy some cuts from everyone's psych eval as a reward for your patience. **

**Chapter 28: Doctor/Patient Confidentiality**

_One Week After Team 7's return to Konoha_

"So Naruto-kun, do you know why you're here?"

"Not really."

Two blondes sat in a small, cozy office. The walls were painted a calming beige, and several various knickknacks sat on side tables and shelves. A fancy desk sat in the corner, unused, while the two blonde's sat in across from one another, relaxing in two of the most comfortable chairs available in Konoha.

"Your team has been through two absurdly bad missions in a row, and in light of the stress team 7 has faced, Hokage-sama decided that you might appreciate a chance to talk about what you've been through." Inoichi started, "Anything you mention in these walls will be between you and me, with two exceptions. If I think you might hurt yourself or hurt someone else in the village, I'm obligated to intervene, but if you have any questions bothering you that you've been too embarrassed to voice or scared to bring up, whether personal or related to your shinobi career, I'd like you to know that you can voice them in this room without having to worry about judgement."

"Ok," Naruto answered, without continuing.

"But," Inoichi said with a small smile, "That kind of dialogue doesn't just spring up, so I thought we'd start with by talking about your most recent mission unless there is something else you'd prefer to talk about."

"My last mission?" Naruto asked, before turning his head away from Inoichi as he idly kicked his legs in the chair, "Sure, my last mission...was a lot of fun?"

"Fun?" Inoichi said in surprise, "Really?"

"Yeah," Naruto continued, "Kakashi-sensei taught us new Jutsu, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Sakura showed us how to make a few basic tags, even if I don't get _how_ they work. So now I can swim on dry land and make stuff explode with bad handwriting. And even without all that stuff, it was fun setting traps and catching Ebisu in them all month."

"So you enjoy learning new techniques?"

"Yeah, I'm going to be the best Hokage ever, so I'll need to know lots of techniques, and each new Jutsu I learn is another step towards my goal."

"And what about the arts other than ninjutsu?" Inoichi asked, "Taijutsu, Genjutsu, Kenjutsu, presentation, Fuuinjutsu?"

"I'm working on those too," Naruto answered indignantly, "My taijutsu is waaaaaay better than it used to be, and Sasuke even managed to teach me the Genjutsu that Kakashi taught him. I don't know any Kenjutsu, the only weapons I use are kunai, shuriken, and wires, but with my new capacitor barriers, I've been working on corralling enemies and shocking them without needing to rely on them actually running into my barriers."

"Yes, using weapons in conjunction with ninjutsu is one of the ways chuunin and more experienced genin boost the _penetration_ of their attacks, it adds a level of unpredictability and helps focus some of the more diffuse ninjutsu. I'm happy to see that you're using your head, Naruto." Inoichi said with a nod, "So you enjoyed spending more time with your sensei and teammates? Or you just liked focusing more on your training?"

"Both I guess," Naruto answered slowly, "When I got on this team, I was sorta happy and sorta upset because I was on a team with Sakura-chan and Sasuke, but Team 7 has been the most awesome team ever. They didn't even care when they found out that I was a jinchuuriki."

"I was unaware that you'd shared that particular detail with anyone, Naruto. "Inoichi said with mild surprise, "How exactly did they take it?"

"Sasuke didn't care, Sakura asked if I really was an Uzumaki or if Jiji gave me the name to honor Aunt Mito; then she just kept asking if she could see my seal."

"Aunt Mito?" asked the older man.

"Yeah, Sakura said that the first Hokage married Mito Uzumaki, and that she sealed the Kyuubi into herself when the Hokage fought Uchiha Madara. I don't know if I'm related to her or not, but I like to pretend..." Naruto trailed off.

"Well," Inoichi said as he tried to steer away from a morbid topic, "It's surprising that you enjoyed your mission so much, few ninja have good things to say about missions involving invasions, regardless of what side they're on."

"But the invasion wasn't part of the mission," Naruto shot back with some minor confusion, "We were on a mission to test Sakura's seals and train how to use them or get around them. The invasion just happened to show up while we were out of the village."

"Yes," Inoichi answered with a grin, "It wasn't part of your actual mission, but most people wouldn't separate the invasion you and your teammates faced from the mission that put you in its path."

"Well that's silly," Naruto frowned in reply.

"Yes," Inoichi chuckled lightly, "I suppose it is."

The two ninja sat in silence for several seconds before Inoichi continued.

"So, would you tell me about the invasion?"

"Ok," Naruto said, "It was sorta weird, not anything like I expected. The whole thing was a huge mess.

"A huge mess?"

"There were lots of ninja who were better than me, and there were lots of little fights happening through the woods, but it was almost impossible to keep what was going on straight in my head. One ninja would throw a kunai at my clone, which would force him to dodge, activating a seal that was aimed in an entirely different direction. Then that seal would pop a few of my clones and hurt some other ninja in their own little battle without anyone seeing it coming."

"And you were expecting things to be more orderly?"

"In the academy, Iruka-sensei always talked about the great battles between legends, Like the Shodaime and Madara or the Yondaime and the Kyuubi..." Naruto trailed off.

"And you thought that it would be like those stories, one ninja against another, with the better warrior winning and going home having resolved the conflict conclusively." Inoichi finished for him, "Not a total mess where luck and factors not even related to the fight you're in can kill just as easily as the enemy in front of you."

"Yeah," Naruto said quietly.

"Naruto," Inoichi said with a wry smile, "The simple fact of the matter is that the battle doesn't always go to the strong or the race to the quick, and the best shinobi is usually the one that can adapt to and endure changing circumstances the best."

"So we cheat?"

"So we cheat."

* * *

_Later, in the same office_

Inoichi and Sasuke sat in Inoichi's office in silence, neutrally staring at each other.

The silence continued uninterrupted for 30 seconds before Inoichi finally spoke in a serious tone, "Sasuke-kun, do you know what separated Hashirama Senju from the rest of the shinobi of his era?"

Sasuke shook his head, prompting Inoichi to continue,"If you attacked an ordinary shinobi, when the smoke cleared, there would be a log in front of you while the shinobi his you in the back of your head, but if you attacked Hashirama, when the smoke cleared, he would be right in front of you while a log hit you in the back of your head."

Sasuke stared flatly at Inoichi while a stupid grin grew on the blonde's face. The two looked at each other for several seconds before Inoichi's smile crumbled and he became crestfallen.

"Someday," Inoichi sighed theatrically, "Someday I'm going to make you laugh, Sasuke-kun, even if it takes a thousand years."

"Not unless you improve your jokes, "Sasuke said in a complete deadpan.

"Well enough of that," Inoichi said, his good humor returning, "How have you been, Sasuke-kun? You haven't been in this office for almost 5 years."

"And I'd hoped to never have to come back here again."

"Sasuke-kun" Inoichi wept playfully, "Why don't you looooooooooooooveeeee meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Shedding his faux distress, Inoichi continued, "So really, how have you been?"

"Same as always, training, preparing for revenge, continuing my shinobi career, fought off an invasion with my team," Sasuke said flatly.

"And what do you think of your team?"

"I think I'm the normal one on the team," Sasuke shrugged before all color drained from his face, "Holy crap, I'm the normal one on the team."

"Oh?" Inoichi asked amusedly, "Do tell."

"Naruto is like a puppy; he's exuberant and loud and happy _all the time_. He doesn't go away, no matter what I try, and he never gets tired, **ever**. He's an idiot, except when he pulls some obnoxiously brilliant trap or feint in a full spar. It's almost like he knows exactly what to do or say to be the most frustrating teammate or opponent possible, without realizing it." Sasuke started to rant.

"How about Sakura-chan?" Inoichi countered, trying to keep Sasuke's momentum going.

"Sakura is a reality warping demon from the pits of hell, routinely doing the impossible," Sasuke paused as Inoichi raised an eyebrow, "She's not as fast or strong as me or Naruto, she doesn't have much chakra, she shouldn't be able to do what she does, but somehow, she managed to convince an army to turn on each other by talking to them."

Inoichi gestured for Sasuke to continue.

"There are these... these moments, where her whole demeanor shifts and she either pulls an insane idea out of nowhere, some new seal or set-up. She goes from an annoying little girl to a horrifyingly cold _ninja, _without any warning. She can't lie or act for shit, she just changes on a fundamental level."

"I see," Inoichi said seriously, "Then would you like to request a transfer to a different squad?"

"What?" Sasuke said in shock.

"Well, if you're having problems with your teammates or squad, then it's my duty to try to help you find a place where you can be comfortable and reach your full potential. If one of your teammates is frustrating and the other scares you with her transience..." Inoichi trailed off.

"No," Sasuke forced out, almost offended, "They're weird, even Kakashi-sensei is crazy, but..."

"But what?" Inoichi asked with a frown.

"But we're Team 7." Sasuke declared, "There's no way I'll let you break up my team."

"Well," Inoichi said with a small smile, "I'm glad to see you're happy with your placement."

* * *

"Hello Kakashi-san" Inoichi said dryly.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Inoichi-san." Kakashi answered cheerfully, "My ninken buried my bones and it took me a while to dig myself up so I could come to my psych eval."

"Of course," Inoichi answered flatly.

"Oh, would you look at the time?" Kakashi said, not even glancing at the clock on the wall, "Sakura's evaluation should start any minute. Where _does_ the time go? I'll just get out of your _fabulous_ hair. Have a nice day Inoichi-san, goodbye." While speaking Kakashi had gotten up from his chair, walked to the door, opened it to reveal his sole female student about to knock, ushered her in, and left the room, slamming the door behind him."

Inoichi sighed before addressing Sakura, "Never before has psychiatry been so decried by someone who needed it so much."

"Hello, Inoichi-san." Sakura said with a smile.

"Hello, Sakura-chan," Inoichi answered, mirroring her smile, "It's been a long time since you came over for a sleepover with Ino."

"Yeah," Sakura bashfully answered, turning her head away before continuing, "So how do we do this?"

"Do what?" Inoichi asked with a small smile on his face.

"My psych eval?" Sakura half asked, half said.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Inoichi said, waving his hand dismissively, "I've known you for years, and it's clear to me you're still the same little girl who would try to convince me to let you and my daughter braid my hair. You've had a difficult time on your missions, and done far more for this village than the Hokage could have possibly expected, but I think you'll bounce back just fine, after some light duty."

"So if I'm not here for my psych eval, then why am I here?"

"Because, Sakura," Inoichi said gravely, "I wanted to catch up with one of my daughter's friends and maybe play a game of Shogi while billing the bureaucracy."

Inoichi had his grim expression for several seconds before his mouth twitched into a smirk for a second, prompting Sakura to laugh, "Alright, shogi it is, Inoichi-san."

"Fantastic," Inoichi said with a grin as he pulled out a board and pieces.

The game began and continued in silence for several minutes before Inoichi spoke up again, "So tell me, Sakura-chan, apart from two disastrous missions, what have you been up to?"

"Not much," Sakura answered without looking up from the board, "In the mornings, Sasuke, Naruto and I train and talk until Kakashi shows up, talking mostly since our last mission, as Sasuke and I only recently got over the injuries we sustained on our mission and are still supposed to take it easy. Then we'd go do a D-rank mission or two, but we haven't done that since before our last mission. This week we've just gone out for lunch, then Kakashi will do some training with us. This week, it's mostly been stretches and footwork. Then I head home for dinner with my parents and spend most of my evening studying fuuinjutsu and making seals. Kakashi has been really understanding, and doesn't complain when I take the occasional nap."

"Do you miss more rigorous training?"

"Eh," Sakura said as she waved her hand in a non-committal fashion, "I'm not stir crazy enough to risk injuring myself and I'm still tired all the time, but the moratorium on more heavy training and sparring made it more difficult to show Naruto my _displeasure_ with his injuries during the invasion."

"I thought Naruto was completely fine when they checked him out at the hospital," Inoichi said.

"Yes," Sakura answered, "He was fine several days after the fact when the rest of Team 7 returned to Konoha, but he still almost died during the invasion itself. Almost anyone else **would** have died in his position. I can't tolerate that kind of behavior. There was punishment when Sasuke almost died on our mission in Wave Country, and there was punishment now."

* * *

_Meanwhile, at Ichiruka's Ramen Stand_

"**NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!**" Naruto cried to the heavens as he uselessly beat his hands against the barrier that kept him from Nirvana.

"I'm sorry, Naruto," Ayame called out from inside the barrier, "But Sakura told us what happened on your mission and if this is what it takes to make you more careful, then so be it. You can come back in a week, but no ramen until then."

"**TRAITOR!**" Naruto responded.

"Now Naruto," Teuchi answered, "This hurts us just as much as it hurts you, but it's for your own good."

At this point, Naruto fell to his knees and began mumbling incoherently before eventually promising to be faithful even during this separation.

* * *

_Inoichi's Office_

"So how did you punish Naruto?" Inoichi asked morbidly

"Not just Naruto," Sakura clarified, "Sasuke too. They both had a part in what happened, so they both get punished."

* * *

_Elsewhere in Konoha_

Sasuke glared at his favorite food, perfect, uncut, red tomatoes from the Land of Vegetables, tomatoes that he could not buy or steal.

"I'm sorry Uchiha-san," came the explanation from his usual dealer, "You teammate, with the pink hair, told me what happened and offered to improve my security and refrigeration if I cut you off for a week. I hope you can at least learn to be more careful in the future."

"Fucking Fuuinjutsu users," Sasuke muttered, before turning and leaving.

* * *

_Inoichi's Office_

_"_You cut them off from their favorite foods as punishment for making you worry?" Inoichi said in disbelief.

"Yes, yes I did," Sakura responded as she checkmated Inoichi, "And I even set up barrier seals that only activate when their chakra gets nearby, just so they wouldn't be able to sneak in or steal some of their favorite food as a fix."

"Devious," agreed Inoichi as he got up and started up an electric kettle, "Would you like some tea? It'll take a few minutes to make."

"I'd love some tea, Inoichi-san" Sakura answered with a smile.

Inoichi spent some time fiddling with the kettle before returning to his seat and saying, "I'm rather surprised you decided to dive into fuuinjutsu."

"I know, it's not exactly the most common shinobi discipline, but it seemed to fit."

"You've done very well from what I've heard, but most fuuinjutsu masters don't begin studying the art until they're much older than you, and almost no one begins training fuuinjutsu until they've developed proficiency with one of the other shinobi arts."

"Why not?" Sakura asked with a frown.

"Two reasons," Inoichi answered, "If you rely on fuuinjutsu, you typically need to make all your seals in advance, meaning you're limited to the tools you predicted needing and the contingencies you've established, so your flexibility in the field is rather limited unless you can quickly make seals as needed, a skill that is difficult to master without a great deal of experience molding chakra. As a result, most ninja don't think it's flexible enough to be the mainstay of a combat style, so they pick a different art to start, Yondaime-sama's prowess on the battlefield, for example, came from the Rasengan. He used his fuuinjutsu-based teleportation to overcome the short range of his primary offensive jutsu."

"And the second reason?" Sakura said, looking simultaneously apprehensive and relieved.

"It's a difficult art to learn." Inoichi answered, prompting Sakura to raise an eyebrow, "No, really, Sakura-chan, while the basics are not much more complicated than some of the upper levels of math and code-breaking that some shinobi need to learn, learning fuunijutsu takes a lot of time, requires focus, and doesn't have a clearly measurable metric that can be used to judge progress. It's not like a jutsu, where you can _see_ progress as a fireball grows bigger, or weapons accuracy where you can measure greater distances to a target as you improve. Younger ninja rarely have the focus and attention span to really progress in sealing, and older ninja rarely perceive any real benefit to a huge time-sink of training with nebulous benefits, especially as compressing seals costs chakra, which can hinder a ninja's training in ninjutsu or genjutsu unless they have unusually large chakra reserves. It's very frustrating for most ninja to spend hours on end trying to design a seal, failing constantly until they develop a new, static, seal that can't easily be adapted to different circumstances. So most of the ninja who try fuuinjutsu only learn the bare basics, and even then they'll get so frustrated they just-"

_*pfweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee* _went the Tea-kettle, prompting Inoichi to get up turn his back to Sakura as he prepared and poured two cups of tea.

"I can agree with that," Sakura said, "It's no fun spending hours pouring over my notes, hitting my head against a metaphorical wall. Sometimes they don't work at all, sometimes they just work really weirdly, sometimes they're so fragile they stop working if I stare at them too hard, without Ishi to help, I doubt I would have made as much progress as I have."

"Ishi?" Inoichi asked curiously, as he brought a tray with two cups of tea and the kettle back to his desk.

_'*sigh*'_

"Oh," Sakura said, blushing as she took her cup of tea, "It's a little embarrassing."

"How so?" Inoichi asked as he took his own cup of tea.

"Well..." Sakura trailed off.

The two sat in silence for several seconds, sipping their tea. Sakura found herself unable to meet his gaze.

"Promise you won't laugh?" Sakura asked eventually.

"Sakura-chan," Inoichi said with a comforting smile, "I promise I won't judge anything you tell me in confidence."

"Fine," Sakura answered, mustering her courage and taking a sip of tea before continuing, "Ishi is... my... imaginary friend."

"Imaginary friend?" Inoichi responded with genuine surprise, "And he helps you with fuuinjutsu."

"Yeah, he's been with me for as long as I can remember, always there to help me with a different perspective. He doesn't ever know anything I don't know myself, but he has a way of looking at things differently."

"I'm rather surprised this is the first I'm hearing of an imaginary friend."

"Did Ino ever tell you about Princess Oakclaw? Her imaginary pet pink wolf with wood powers?" replied Sakura, as she stifled a yawn.

"Point" Inoichi conceded.

"Ishi and I work well together, it's nice to pretend I have someone to talk to about..." Sakura put down her empty cup of tea and gestured vaguely, "...anything."

"Yes, I rather agree." Inoichi responded, sipping his tea, " Having a confidant is very relaxing."

"Even if he's only in my head," Sakura yawned, " I'm glad I have him."

"Sakura-chan," Inoichi said with a look of minor concern, "You're looking very tired, maybe you should lie down on the couch"

"I don't think-" Sakura's complaint was cut off as she yawned, "-that that's a bad idea. Thank you for the kind offer of your couch."

"Don't think anything of it," Inoichi replied with a smirk, "I get paid for the amount of time you're in this room, even if you decide to take a nap."

Sakura laughed lightly as she got up and moved over to the small, but comfortable, couch in the corner of Inoichi's office. She was asleep in seconds.

Inoichi calmly put away the shogi board, set aside the tea tray after thoroughly wiping sakura's teacup, and waited 180 seconds before walking over to Sakura's sleeping body and forming a hand-seal.

* * *

The entrance to a person's mind was always someplace they were intimately familiar with; a place the person in question had spent a great deal of time in or thinking about.

Inoichi found himself in an academy classroom.

The seats had more cushioning and looked more comfortable than he remembered, the windows were tinted, and the teacher's desk seemed large enough for a man 3 meters tall, but it was undoubtedly a classroom at Konoha's very own shinobi academy.

Rather curiously, Inoichi rifled through the various desks and found memories of the academy: Lessons, lunch with Ino, sparring practice, a speech by the Hokage, watching Sasuke-kun and sighing from afar. And in all of them, every single memory Inoichi found in the classroom, there was a voice.

An adult voice, a male voice, a non-diegetic voice.

The voice made snarky comments, some of which memory!Sakura enjoyed and some of which she didn't. It gave advice, some of which Sakura took, like how to improve her footwork or how to breathe properly, and some of which she ignored, like how to woo or not woo memory!Sasuke.

The ninja-therapist-interrogator was confused; he had seen memories with imaginary friends, none had any of the detail or clarity that the voice had, and none were as omnipresent in a person's memories as the voice.

Hoping to find some explanation, Inoichi left the classroom and walked down the academy halls, occasionally peeking into different rooms.

From the windows, he could see adorable little children 'sparring' or doing calisthenics in the schoolyard.

In the kunoichi class-room, Inoichi found an unholy amalgamation of the classroom that he was expecting, Ino's bedroom, and what he assumed was Sakura's bedroom. He spent several moments watching his daughter and his current 'patient' learn to apply make-up with clumsy childish hands and prance around in high-heels several sizes too large for them, pretending to be adults. Again, there was a voice, indulging Sakura's delusions like most parents or older siblings would do.

Moving on, Inoichi stopped by the principles office, where he found Sakura reciting the various shinobi rules, annotated by the voice, as well as a massive wall mural, containing the "Rules of Team Seven" in 5-meter tall concrete lettering that somehow still fit in the office.

Eventually, Inoichi decided to go to the one room of the academy that was least likely to have significance to a young girl.

Several minutes later, Inoichi stepped into the boys bathroom and gasped at what he found.


	29. Chapter 29: Enough Cliffhanging Already

**Chapter 29: Enough Cliffhanging Already**

Inoichi found himself standing on a mountain ridge, suddenly sweating from the sweltering heat and an unforgiving sun, both of which were made barely tolerable by an intermittent breeze and the occasional wandering cloud granting a minute of shade.

The ground sloped down until it dropped to form a sheer cliff face centered around a single point jutting out from the rest of the shelf he was standing on. Evergreen trees dotted the outcropping, while covering most of the mountainside he could lower than his current position. Walking forward to the edge of the cliff, Inoichi could see that at the base of the mountain, there was a sizeable lake with deep blue waters, its shores rich with Evergreen trees and shrubs. There were walking trails visible where the trees thinned out, leading around the lake and up the base of the mountain. But the truly breathtaking view was the vast valley that stretched out for miles from where he was standing

But the truly breathtaking view was the vast valley that stretched out for miles from where he was standing, rolling plains covered with tall grass and sage bushes until more mountains rose up in the distance. In the distance, he could see a small town. Elsewhere in the immense expanse, he could see fields filled with what he assumed were cattle. A paved road wound through the valley.

Inoichi took in the view for several minutes, marvelling at the detail of the mental construct, before turning back to look at the door that had brought him here.

The door was there, the same doors found in the Konoha Academy, simply sitting on the rock face, looking completely out of place.

However, Inoichi realized, he was not at the top of the mountain he was currently standing on. He wasn't even halfway up the mountain, which stretched up for several thousand more feet.

He stared in awe at the mountain range he was standing on, the peaks covered in snow despite the ridiculous heat, towering over him, the magnificent stone edifices were visibly larger than any mountain Inoichi had ever seen in his life, including the Three Wolves Mountain that made the Land of Iron so famous.

Clouds would drift across the sky into the mountain, only for the peaks to remain visible above them.

"Inspiring, isn't it?" came the voice that Inoichi had heard in Sakura's memories, "To be so far up and still be nowhere near the peak. To see land stretched out so far beneath you and still feel so insignificant."

Inoichi turned and looked to the side of the path, where a young man was sitting on a boulder in the shade. Spending a minute to take in his features before responding.

The man was over average height, with almost unnaturally pale skin, short and neat muddy brown hair and eyes, stubble around his mouth, and a nasty scar just above his nose. He wore angular glasses with a brown, metal frame that almost hid the bags under his eye. His clothing was decidedly civilian: a red t-shirt and gray shorts with heavy boots suitable for hiking. All in all, he seemed like a normal, civilian adult.

"Ishi, I presume?" Inoichi said eventually, turning his whole body towards the enigmatic entity.

"In the abstract flesh" Ishi responded as he stood up and took a bow.

"You're not an imaginary friend," Inoichi pondered aloud before counting off on his fingers, "Your only inclusion in Sakura's memories is a voice, not the avatar's young children imagine, you can project your own mindscape to an extent, and it's both complex and somewhere Sakura has never seen to my knowledge. Where are we, by the way?"

"You could show me any map you have in Konoha, and I would never be able to point to these mountains on any of them," Ishi said with a grin, " We can call them Tetons if you need a name, however."

"Fair enough," Inoichi answered as he crossed his arms, "You're not some enemy ninja using genjutsu or some mental techniques to take advantage of a citizen, because you've been with Sakura since her earliest years without crushing her mind like anyone who uses those techniques on a child is likely to do."

"But just because you can't see the damage that results from less than divinely perfect use of those techniques," Ishi interrupted while raising a finger, "Doesn't rule out a long con by a ninja with divinely perfect mastery of mental techniques."

"No," Inoichi answered, "You're present with Sakura in every memory she has, no matter where she is. No one has the time to perform that kind of technique, and mind techniques don't mesh with clone techniques because they unbalance the structure of mental and physical energy."

"Good, you're thinking this through," Ishi said, before waving his hand to gesture Inoichi could continue.

"Jinchuriki are sometimes reported to have this kind of divorced mindscape," the ninja responded, "But the bijuu are all accounted for and while Sakura does have seals on her body, her system doesn't show any type of foreign chakra."

"So what am I?" Ishi said, his grin widening as some recognition reached Inoichi's eyes.

"You're a separate mind in Sakura's head," Inoichi practically whispered, "That's the only way Sakura would have this kind of dual mindscape without external chakra in her system. How the hell does a child develop MPD as a toddler?"

"That depends,"Ishi said before his mild and pleased tone dropped to something more serious, "What. Am. I."

Inoichi stopped for a minute, his mouth opening soundlessly, before he continued his train of thought, "You're not a father figure, or a friend for an isolated and lonely girl, as Sakura has both Paternal and Fraternal figures in her life. Your appearance doesn't resemble her's even superficially, so you're not some psychotic alternate personality. You're not the manifestation of some anxiety disorder, trauma, or brain damage, as she doesn't have anything like that in her medical history. So tell me, what _are _you?"

"You haven't figured it out?" Ishi's disappointed frown speaking volumes, "This world runs on _Duality_."

"What?" Inoichi was thrown by the apparent non-sequitur

Nonplussed, Ishi continued, pacing towards the cliff: "Woman and Man, Mind and Body, Yin and Yang, Form and Substance, Moon and Sun, Indra and Ashura, Uchiha and Senju, the _base_ of this world is in its duality. "

"So you're, what? Sakura's opposite? A man just past adolescence compared a girl at its very beginning? Civilian to her ninja, Average appearance to her uniqueness."

"Sure, if you want to look at it that way." Ishi said with a shrug, "I'm an idealist at heart with a pragmatic outlook, compared to her cynical nature protected by childhood innocence. My Egalitarianism is opposed to her Deontological ethics. But duality doesn't mean opposites so much as it means complements. I'm her antithesis in the classical sense: that which, when included, makes her more than she is. "

Inoichi raised an eyebrow, "Deontological?"

"Those who break the rules are trash."

"But those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash." Inoichi interjected.

"Yes, that's true," Ishi agreed, "It's so important that it's one of the underlying **rules** of Konoha society. But back to me and Sakura: to every failure she has, I tell her to get up and try again. After every triumph, I remind her that she, too, is mortal. When she's trapped by cognitive bias I help her with a different perspective. I propose an idea, she makes it work. I help identify an ambition while she provides a drive. She perfects the application of an idea given to her, while I give weight to an idea she wouldn't have considered. I _am, _she _does_. She _sees_, but I _understand_."

"She's rather humble" Inoichi grunts.

"And I'm a complete braggart."

Inoichi went rigid, before uttering, "Sakura is a loyal ninja."

"Yes," Ishi said as his grin returned, "She is, while I'd happily tear down the entire Ninja World, piece by piece."

* * *

_Elsewhere_

Naruto and Sasuke had met and commiserated on being denied their favorite foods before a solution presented itself to them.

Naruto sat in his apartment with a bag of fresh tomatoes, when a knock came on his door.

Getting up to answer it, Naruto called out, "Is that you, Sasuke?"

"It's not like anyone else ever visits you," Sasuke's muffled voice called back, "Now open up, moron."

"Ouch," Naruto said, opening the door with his left hand while his right covered his heart, "That hurt more than any hit you've managed to land in a spar to date, asshole."

"Shut up," Sasuke sniped back, as he walked in and placed several bowls of Ichiruka's takeout on Naruto's table, "My best work doesn't come on an empty stomach."

"Thanks for bringing the ramen," Naruto said as he sat down and opened his bounty.

"No problem," Sasuke answered before opening the bag of _technically-_fruit, "So how are we going to get Sakura back for this?"

"We're not," Naruto answered as he opened his takeout and began wolfing down his noodles.

"Why should we let her get away with it?" Sasuke asked in flatly as he carefully inspected his tomatoes to find the perfect snack.

"Because if we don't let her get away with it," Naruto answered with a smug smirk that Sasuke considered almost passable, "She'll find a different punishment: one that **works**."

"That's -," Sasuke said, raising a finger before pausing, " -actually a good point."

"So we're agreed?"

Sasuke only grunted in response.

* * *

_On an imaginary Rock Face_

"I'm sorry," Inoichi said rubbing his pointer finger in his left ear. "I don't think I caught that. You want to do **_what?_**"

"Tear apart the culture and institutions that underpin the Shinobi world and all that entails," Ishi answered with the same smug grin.

"You know," Inoichi said in surprise, his hands hanging at his sides, "I would have thought the opposite of Sakura being a loyal shinobi would be merely hating Konoha."

"Oh I do," Ishi said, as he sat down on a rock and turned to face the lake below the cliff face before continuing in the same pleasant tone of voice, "Hate Konoha, that is. You have family members enslaving and torturing other family members, created the modern tradition of Jinchuriki and then proceeded to ostracize them, utilize child-soldiers, openly have a department dedicated to Torture, promote stagnation and hoarding of knowledge, kidnap and brainwash orphans, make war without regard for collateral damage or the sovereignty of foreign nations, and restrict the usage of chakra to be solely a tool of war and it's supporting fields. Hell, you literally **just** invaded the sanctity of a child's mind on the_ suspicion_ that she **might** either be involved with espionage or have mental problems. I just happen to also hate every other ninja village for much the same thing: Torture, genocide, kidnapping, war crimes, brainwashing, and the abuse of chakra."

"You can't expect to say something like that and have us allow you to act on that ambition," Inoichi said flatly, as he sat down next to Ishi.

"Act?" Ishi snorted as he sat down on the edge of the cliff, "Please, I don't have any agency of my own. I'm entirely dependent on Sakura as an intermediary to engage the real world, and she's, as you said, a loyal ninja of Konoha."

"You say that as if I'd allow you to remain in her head," Inoichi answered flatly.

Ishi rolled his eyes and responded, "I'm not a foreign influence you can remove, and if that kind of far-reaching mental manipulation and influence were within your grasp, not only would your clan rule the world, but traitors to the village and missing nin wouldn't exist. If you try, you're more likely to kill or cripple one of the more promising shinobi in Konoha's upcoming generation, sour your relationship with both the Last Uchiha and Jinchuriki, and even if you managed to succeed in removing or killing me without affecting Sakura at all, how exactly would you explain wanting to kill her imaginary friend?"

Ishi then twisted his face and continued in a mocking imitation of Inoichi's voice, "Oh, I'm sorry Sakura, we had to get rid of Ishi because he's a wild revolutionary who opposed our entire way of life and threatened everything we stand for with his powers of talking to one little girl."

"There's no need to be flippant." Inoichi frowned, as he sat down next to Ishi.

Ishi sighed before answering, "Sorry, but you're the first person other than Sakura I've spoken to in...ever."

"I accept your apology," the older man answered with a small smile before leaning back and resting on his palms, "I recognize that this whole situation is very odd, so I guess we're going to have to make the best of it. So I ask, for Sakura's sake, that you _please_ consider any actions you take **very** carefully."

"I will," Ishi returned Inoichi's smile as he leaned back on his palms.

"I just wish that we could have prodigy shinobi that aren't clearly insane," Inoichi muttered as he stood up.

"Sane people make terrible killers," Ishi called out as Inoichi walked to the door on the mountainside.

Walking out of Ishi's mindscape, Inoichi brought his hands together and called out, "Release."

Meanwhile, Ishi continued to watch the lake beneath him as the world began to fade around him before talking to no-one in particular, "He really should have remembered that Sakura can't lie for shit."

* * *

_The Hokage's Office: the following morning_

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat down at his desk, as Inoichi strolled into his office, hoping for a peaceful update on team 7's mental health before he had to deal with another day of political talks with Suna representatives. "Woe to the conquered," he muttered to himself as he filled his pipe, "And woe to whoever has to deal with the aftermath."

"Good morning, Hokage-sama," Inoichi said neutrally, "Do you want the good news-"

"Damn it," the Hokage muttered to himself,

"-Or the bad news first," Inoichi said, as he placed several folders on the elderly man's desk.

"Let's start with the good news," Hiruzen sighed as he lit his pipe, "I doubt I'll have much more of it today."

"Ok," Inoichi smiled, "Naruto is, as always, surprisingly healthy and upbeat from a mental standpoint. He's still as stubborn as ever, but he happily interacts with his peers and emotes almost _too _much. Team 7 has been good for him, he's showing more complex thought patterns, and is in all ways acceptable and happy on Team 7. Sasuke, additionally, is starting to come out his shell, something that hasn't happened since _that night_. He has bonded with his team and will likely become more social - or at least less isolated - if given the chance to interact with others his own age. He still has an inferiority complex relative to his brother, but it's less pronounced now. Both boys have begun to bloom under Kakashi's tutelage and risen to adversity with aplomb."

"And Sakura?" The Hokage as he smiled for two children he'd failed so much in the past.

"She's insane."

The two nin sat in silence for several seconds, as the Hokage puffed on his pipe before responding, "Elaborate."

"She thinks she has an imaginary friend, a young adult named Ishi," Inoichi said as he pulled out a chair and sat down before the Hokage's desk, his eyes beseeching the heavens for some measure of strength, "He's a manifestation of MPD, a completely separate personality, based on Sakura's idea of a complement or an opposite."

"An evil Sakura?" asked the Hokage.

Inoichi paused for several seconds, waving one finger slightly in front of him as he thought, "No. Or at least nothing so clear-cut. As far as I can tell, he's based on what Sakura views as her opposite, so if he were pure evil, it would imply Sakura views herself as pure, untainted, perfectly good."

"So what's the problem?"

"Apparently, Sakura views herself as a loyal shinobi, dedicated to Konoha and her way of life-"

"Which makes Ishi a dedicated revolutionary," Hiruzen grumbled, "How **much** of a problem is this liable to be?"

"He can't act directly through Sakura-chan, or influence her actions in any way. She talks to her imaginary friend, and he talks back, Sakura doesn't even recognize that he's not just a fleshed-out imaginary friend."

"Options?"

"I could try to remove him from her mind, but we'd risk killing her or crippling her by altering her mind that deeply. Even if she remains physically unchanged, it could unbalance her spiritual energy, complicating her future use of chakra."

"Not ideal, can we leverage Ishi in any other way."

"I'm not sure if making Sakura less loyal would make him more trustworthy," Inoichi shook his head, "And even if it worked, reducing a ninja with agency of her own to improve a potential asset without agency is counterproductive.

Hiruzen leaned back in his chair and puffed his pipe several times, "Killing Ishi might kill Sakura. We can't remove Sakura from her team without alienating the other members, and making her a civilian or overtly hindering her would just open her up to Ishi's influence. Telling an adolescent girl that her imaginary friend is secretly an anarchist who wants to destroy the village would be a waste of time. We may just have to ingratiate her to the village and keep a close eye on her."

"My conclusion as well, Hogake-sama."

"Is there anything else?"

"No, that's the gist of it."

The elderly man's head and shoulders sank for several moments before he took a deep breath and straightened in his seat and spoke decisively, "Leave the files here. Kakashi should be here soon for my decision on him and his team. Thank you for your work and have a nice day."

"You as well, Hokage-sama" Inoichi answered before placing three folders on the Hokage's desk and leaving.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat in silence for half an hour, paging through the psychiatric evaluations of team 7, as well as several intelligence reports that he had received over the past few days.

Half an hour later, the office door creaked open as Kakashi popped his head in and preemptively apologized, "I'm sorry I'm late Hokage-sama, but I had to take several detours to avoid going near any stairs."

"It's fine, Kakashi-kun, just sit down."

Nodding along, Kakashi sat down in one of the chairs in front of the Hokage's desk.

"Your team's psychological and medical evaluations are in, and both are good enough to allow them to resume their duties as shinobi-"

"Excellent," Kakashi interrupted, "I'll start their training back up when we meet tomorrow."

"-**But**," Sarutobi continued, " There is a problem."

"What did Sakura do now?" Kakashi sighed.

"Nothing," Sarutobi responded as he slid a document across his desk, "It's what _you_ did. Congratulations on your new threat assessment."

"S-rank? Bijuu levels of chakra? Mastery of Mass-Clone techniques? Army-killer?" Kakashi read in shock.

"Yes, Kakashi-kun, you've received an S-rank threat assessment in every Bingo-book that matters, and your bounty has grown to reflect that."

"So..." Kakashi drawled expectantly, "What exactly is the problem?"

The elderly ninja sighed, "Every _single_ time a ninja reaches S-rank, the same thing happens. The next time you leave the village, Bounty hunters and assassins are going to try to take you out. Since you aren't actually an S-rank ninja, they may actually succeed, especially if you have to protect your genin team."

"That's a surprisingly big problem."

"It gets worse," the Hokage shot back, "If you are defeated without a sufficiently legendary conflict, then people will start to question the strength of Konoha ninja: if our S-rank ninja are only as strong as a typical A-rank ninja, what does that say about the rest of our shinobi?"

"Thats-"

"**And what's more**," Sarutobi cut in, "Since your ascension to S-rank was made on a devastating defeat of Suna shinobi, if you fall in the next few months, not only will _our_ reputation be crushed, but so will our greatest allies, destabilizing the balance of power to the level that someone **will**try to invade either us or them, sparking the 4th great shinobi war."

"...What do you suggest I do?" Kakashi asked.

"I suggest nothing, your actions represent Konoha as a whole now, so until you manage to satisfy me that you **are** S-rank, you will not leave this village."

"But that could take **years**!" Kakashi protested.

"Fortunately for you," the Hokage continued, "This isn't the first time Konoha has needed to accelerate a shinobi's growth. For the next several weeks or months, depending on how quickly you learn, you will undergo intensive training. Jiraiya-kun is in town, and if you ask him nicely, he may be willing to give you some advice or help in your goal. Your genin team, in the interests of helping them reintegrate with their peers, will take part in several joint training exercises with genin on other teams as part of their recovery. While you will still meet with them every evening to stay apprised of their training, their education will be supplemented so as to free up your time."

"What exactly will I be training?" the confused jonin asked, "My physical attributes? My jutsu? Situational awareness?"

"That, Kakashi-kun, is what we will be deciding right now." Hiruzen said with a grin as he pulled a large and familiar scroll from under his desk.

* * *

**AN: I'm still alive, and so is this story, even if my update schedule is...quixotic. So don't give up on me yet.**

**That said, feel free to guess how Hiruzen is going to get Kakashi to S-rank, or how Team 7 will take their sensei ditching them for super-secret training.**


End file.
